Imperial Woman (24 page)

That night the Court rested at a bivouac prepared for them but in her tent Tzu Hsi could not rest. Time and time again she sent Li Lien-ying to see if there was word concerning the beloved city. At last, near midnight, a courier came running and Li Lien-ying, watching, caught him by the collar and hauled him before his imperial mistress. Tzu Hsi was still waiting, for she had forbidden her women to prepare her for the night, although they lay sleeping about her on the carpet spread over the bare ground beneath the tent. When she saw the eunuch and the pallid courier, she put her finger to her lips.

“Venerable,” the eunuch hissed, “I brought the fellow here because I knew the Son of Heaven was sleeping. The Chief Eunuch told me that he had prepared twice the usual opium.”

She fixed her great eyes on the frightened courier. “What news do you bring?”

“Venerable,” the man gasped, while the eunuch pushed him to his knees, “the enemy came in full force soon after dawn. The truce holds as of tonight. But this whole day the barbarians have spent in doing evil which they say they do to punish Prince Seng because he tortured those prisoners he took, and because he tore down that white cloth banner.”

Tzu Hsi’s blood chilled and her heart slowed with dread.

“Loose this man,” she said to the eunuch.

When Li Lien-ying loosed him the man slid to the carpet like an empty bag and lay there with his face hidden. She gazed down at him.

“Did the city gates not hold?” Her mouth was dry, so dry her tongue could scarcely make the words.

The man knocked his head on the earth at her feet.

“Venerable, they did not try the gates.”

She asked, “What was that smoke I saw against the sky today as high as thunder clouds?”

“Venerable,” he said, “Yüan Ming Yüan is no more.”

“The Summer Palace?” she shrieked. She put her hands before her staring eyes. “I thought the city burned!”

“No, Majesty,” the man whimpered, “the Summer Palace. The barbarians looted all its treasures. Then they burned the palaces. Prince Kung hastened to prevent them and failed and barely kept his own life, escaping by the small gate in the eunuchs’ court.”

She heard a fearful din inside her skull. Her mind whirled, she saw flames and smoke and porcelain towers and golden roof tops crashing down. She stared at the crouching man.

“Is nothing left?” she whispered.

The man did not lift his head. “Ashes,” he muttered, “only ashes.”

“Close the windows,” Tzu Hsi commanded.

The hot dry wind blew steadily from the northwest over Jehol, a wind she could not bear. The flowers in the courtyard were dead and the leaves of the date trees were torn to shreds. Even the needles of the gnarled pines were yellowing at their base. And the Emperor had not once sent for her since they reached this fortress palace.

Her woman closed the windows.

“Fan me,” Tzu Hsi commanded.

From behind a pillar Li Lien-ying stepped forward and standing by her he waved a large silken fan to and fro. She leaned back in the great carved chair and closed her eyes. She was an exile, a stranger, her roots pulled up. Why had the Emperor not sent for her? Who had taken her place? On the Emperor’s last birthday, the fifth day of the six moon, now a month ago, he had received good wishes and gifts from the whole Court. Only she had not been summoned. She had waited in these rooms, robed in satin and wearing her finest jewels, but he had not summoned her. Through the hours she had waited until the day was done, and then in fear and anger she had torn off her robes and had lain sleepless on her bed all night.

Since then he had been ill, always weaker, so she heard, but still she was not summoned. And his illness deepened, in spite of good omens proclaimed before the imperial birthday by the Board of Astrologers, a fair conjunction of the stars, a comet crossing the northwestern skies. Now he lay dying, so she heard, and still she was not summoned.

“Stop fanning me,” she commanded.

Li Lien-ying’s arm dropped. He stood motionless.

She sat erect, and opening her great eyes she fixed them upon nothing. Indeed, she must know what went on in the Emperor’s bedchamber. Yet she could not go there without summons. Were Prince Kung here, she could ask his advice, but he was far away and still in the capital. That city was now in the hands of the barbarians while he begged and bargained for a truce. But this was eunuchs’ rumor, for she did not know what messages he sent to the Emperor, since she was not summoned. She lived here in her own wing of this palace. Two days ago, when in restless loneliness she had sent word even to Sakota that she wished to visit her, the Consort had made excuse that she had a headache.

“Come here before me,” Tzu Hsi commanded now.

Li Lien-ying stepped before her and bowed his head.

“Fetch me the Chief Eunuch,” she commanded.

“Venerable, he is not allowed to leave the bedchamber,” he replied.

“Who forbids him?” she demanded.

“Venerable, the Three—”

The Three, Prince Yi, Prince Cheng, and the Grand Councilor, Su Shun, her enemies now in power because she was alone and barbarians ruled in the capital!

“Fan me,” she said.

She leaned back her head and closed her eyes and the eunuch began again to fan her slowly. Her thoughts ran hither and thither, and she could not control them. She was more than alone, she was homeless. Yüan Ming Yüan was gone, the home of her heart was heaped ruins. The foreigners, barbarians that they were, had looted its treasure, they had set fire to the carved and paneled walls and screens. Monstrous stories had spread throughout the palace from the lips of the courier sent to tell it and in secret she had sent for the courier again to hear all for herself.

The imperial family had scarcely left the Summer Palace, he said, before the foreign warriors arrived. The Englishman Lord Elgin, moved by the beauty of the Summer Palace, had indeed forbidden its destruction but he could not control his barbarous hordes. When Prince Kung protested from a nearby temple where he had taken shelter, Lord Elgin replied that his men were maddened by the torture and murder of their comrades at the hands of Prince Seng. She heard this and was silent. It was she who had sent the Mongol warrior to attack the white men. Alas, alas!

“My head is bowed in the dust,” the courier had said. “Nevertheless I must report that all which could be carried away was looted. The golden plates were stripped from the ceilings and the golden images from the altars. The gems inset in the imperial thrones were torn out and jeweled screens were carted away. Fine porcelains were broken and ground into the earth, except where some more clever robber perceived their value. Jade pieces were stolen or smashed. Yet with all this robbery, less than one tenth of our treasures were saved even to be enjoyed by our enemies. The rest of our precious and delicate possessions, the bequeathed inheritance of our Imperial Ancestors, was crushed into pieces by the butts of the barbarian guns or tossed into the air by howling white men in wild games. Last of all, the whole palace was set afire. For two days and nights the sky was lit by flames, the clouds dark with smoke. Yet, not satisfied, the barbarians pushed into the uttermost folds of the hills and destroyed every pagoda and every shrine and pavilion, and be sure that close behind the barbarians came the local thieves and robbers.”

Tears crept from under Tzu Hsi’s closed eyelids as she now remembered what the courier had said, and her woman, watching, wiped them away with a kerchief.

“Do not weep, Venerable,” she said tenderly.

“I weep for what that which is no more,” Tzu Hsi said.

“Venerable, this palace, too, is beautiful,” Li Lien-ying said to comfort her.

She did not answer. To her Jehol was not beautiful. Centuries ago the Ancestor Emperor Ch’ien Lung had built this fortress palace a hundred miles north of Peking, and he loved well the wild and sand-hued landscape in which it stood, the miles of sand and rock and in the distance the mountains of bare sand and rock stretched against a sky as endless blue. In contrast to this barren land Ch’ien Lung had made the palace the more gorgeous. The walls were hung with brocaded silks and embroideries of many colors, the ceilings paneled with scarlet and gold and across them gold dragons spread their jeweled length. The table and chairs and vast beds, brought from the south, were carved and inlaid with gems.

Ah, but she longed for gardens and lakes, for fountains and brooks! Here water was more precious than jade. It was carried upon the backs of bearers from little wells, dug into the desert, and when these failed, from a distant oasis. Within her heart a fever of anger burned night and day because Yüan Ming Yüan now lay in ashes, because in the capital Prince Kung stood a suppliant before the barbarians, because here in this remote and dreadful palace, prevented by her enemies, she could not approach the Emperor. She was frantic with anger and anxiety and the discipline she enforced upon herself to hide what she felt, drained the strength from her very bones.

And how could she prevail against her enemies when here she had no friends? The Three had declared themselves against her on that fearful day when the Court had fled the Summer Palace. For she had not ceased to resist flight even while the Court had fled. But they, her enemies, had persuaded the weak and foolish man who was Emperor that he was in danger of his life. She remembered how easily he had yielded and so swiftly that he had left his pipe, his hat, his papers, on the table of his bedchamber. It smote her now to think that when the barbarians had pushed into that imperial place they must have seen these things and laughed loudly to know how frightened was the Son of Heaven. Why should this be an arrow into her heart when all else was gone?

She rose abruptly from her chair, pushing aside with her hand the fan that Li Lien-ying again wielded with slow patience, and she began most restlessly to pace the floor, up and down, up and down, while outside the closed windows the hot winds howled.

Well she knew what the plot was. Su Shun and his allies and their subordinates had taken flight with the Emperor but they had seen to it that the ministers and councilors who might have helped her against them were left behind. She had perceived the conspiracy too late and she was helpless.

No, she had one ally, only one, for even Su Shun could not prevent the Imperial Guard from its duty to protect the Emperor.

She turned imperiously to Li Lien-ying.

“Summon my kinsman, the Commander of the Imperial Guard! I would ask his counsel.”

Now Li Lien-ying had never before failed to obey immediately whatever command she put upon him. What was her surprise to see him hesitate, the fan hanging in his hand!

“Come, come,” she insisted.

He fell upon his knees before her. “Venerable,” he begged, “do not compel me to obey this one command.”

“Why not?” she asked, severely. Surely it could not be that Jung Lu himself was against her.

“Venerable, I dare not say,” Li Lien-ying stammered. “You will have my tongue cut out if I speak.”

“I will not,” she promised.

He continued afraid, nevertheless, and she could not pull the words out of him until at last she flew into a great rage and threatened to have him beheaded if he did not speak without delay. Thus beset, he whispered that the Emperor would not summon her because her enemies had told him that—that—she and Jung Lu—

“Do they say we are lovers?” she demanded.

He nodded his head and hid his face in his hands.

“Liars,” she muttered, “Liars—liars—”

She had to vent her anger somehow and she struck the kneeling eunuch with her foot and he fell over and lay there motionless while she went raging up and down the great hall, coming and going as though she climbed mountains.

Suddenly she stopped before the silent eunuch.

“Get up,” she commanded. “I daresay you have not told me all. What else do you know that I am not told?”

He crawled to his feet, and wiped his sweating face with his sleeve. “Venerable—I have not slept a night since I heard what those three plot.”

She made her eyes wide and terrible. “What do they plot?”

“Venerable,” he faltered. “I cannot speak the traitorous words. They plot—they plot—to seize the Regency themselves—and then—and then—”

“Kill my son!” she shrieked.

“Venerable, I promise you—I did not hear so far as that. I beg you, calm yourself—”

“When did you hear it?”

She sat down in her great chair again and smoothed her hot cheeks with her palms.

“I heard a first rumor many months ago, Venerable—a small rumor, a whisper—”

She cried out. “And you were silent!”

“Venerable,” he said, pleading, “if I told you every rumor I hear you would cast me in prison to silence me. Those who sit in high places must always be surrounded by the swarming insults of gossip. And you, Venerable, were higher than all the rest. Who could have thought that the Son of Heaven would have heeded these lower ones?”

“You should have used that stupid brain of yours,” she cried. “You should have remembered that in the years before I came it was Su Shun who was the well beloved of the Emperor. They were young men together, and because the Emperor was weak and gentle he loved that wild strong youth, who hunted and drank and gambled and lived like a savage. Recall how this same Su Shun rose from a small position in the Board of Revenue to be Assistant Grand Secretary and how he brought about the death of Po Ch’un, that good and honorable man, so that he himself could have the power!”

It had been so, indeed. In the days before her child was born, when she had won the Emperor’s love, one day there had come to her an aged prince, the Grand Secretary Po Ch’un. She had been too young then, too new to palace ways, to comprehend the tangles of intrigue. Therefore she had listened without thought while the good old man besought her to speak for him to the Emperor.

“I do not have his ear now, lady,” he said mournfully, while he stroked his scanty beard, already white.

“Of what are you accused by Su Shun?” she inquired.

“Lady, I am accused of enriching myself at the Throne’s expense. This fellow, this Su Shun, has whispered to the Emperor that I hold back monies from the Imperial Treasury.”