Imperial Woman (31 page)

She replied in her gentlest voice. “I do not know why I spoke so to you, who have taught me all I know. It is I who must ask you to forgive me.”

He would have made protest quickly, but she put up her hand to prevent him.

“No, do not speak—not yet. For I have long had it in my mind to give to you the best reward of all. You shall receive the noble title of Prince Advisor to the Throne with full emolument. And by my special decree—that is to say, by our decree, the two Regents, my sister Consort and myself—the title of the Duke of Ch’in, which my late lord bestowed upon you in gratitude for loyalty, shall now be made hereditary.”

These were high honors and Prince Kung was bewildered by the sudden bestowal. Again he made obeisance and he said in his usual kind and mellow fashion,

“Most High, I wish no reward for what was my duty. My duty first was to my elder brother, then to my Emperor who chanced by birth to be my elder brother. My duty now is first to his son and men to that son as the young Emperor. Next is my duty to you, the Empress Mother, and to both of you, two Empresses, who are the Regents. You see how full my duty is and for none of it should I be rewarded.”

“Indeed, you must accept,” the Empress Mother said, and thus began a courteous battle between them, she insisting and he refusing, until at last they came to graceful agreement.

“I beg to be allowed at least to refuse a title which my sons can inherit,” Prince Kung said at last. “It is not in our tradition that sons inherit what their fathers win. I would have my sons win their own honors.”

To this the Empress Mother could but agree. “Then let the matter be postponed until a time more lucky. Yet I ask a gift from you, too, most honored Prince.”

“It is given,” Prince Kung promised.

“Let me adopt your daughter, Jung-chun, as princess royal. Give me this happiness to comfort me and let me feel you have some small reward for your true and loyal aid against the traitors at Jehol. Did you not answer my summons? I remember no delay.”

It was now the Prince’s turn to yield, and he did so with magnanimity. From that time on his daughter was a princess royal and so faithfully did she serve her sovereign mistress that at last the Empress Mother bestowed upon her a palanquin whose satin curtains were imperial yellow, to use as a perpetual right, as long as she lived, as though she were indeed a princess born.

So the Empress Mother made her plans. She did nothing carelessly or in haste. A plan began with the seed of a wish, a longing, a desire. The seed, planted, might lie fallow for a year, two years, ten years, until the hour came for it to grow, but the flowering came at last.

It was summer again, a pleasant season when winds came from the south and the east, bringing mists and gentle rain and even the scent of the salt seas of which the Empress Mother had heard and had never seen, though she loved water in pools, in fountains and in lakes. As the deep and slumberous heat of high summer crept behind the high walls of the Forbidden City, she longed for the palaces of Yüan Ming Yüan which were no more. She had never seen the ruins nor beheld the ashes, for that she could not endure. Yet, she told herself, there remained the famous Sea Palaces. Why should she not make for herself there a place of repose and pleasure?

So thinking, she decreed a day when her ladies and eunuchs should accompany her palanquin in their sedans and mule carts and on horseback, each according to habit, and though the journey to the Sea Palaces was short, not more than half a mile away, the stir and commotion of the Court procession was such that the streets were cleared by the Imperial Guard lest an evildoer be tempted to raise his hand. The pleasure parks of the Three Sea Palaces were not new to the Empress Mother, for she had visited them many times to make sacrifices in spring on the Altar of Silkworms to the God of Mulberries, and then, entering the Hall of Silkworms, there to offer sacrifices again before the Goddess of Silkworms. This was her yearly duty, but she came sometimes, too, for boating on one of the three lakes called seas, or in winter she came to watch the Court make skating parties on the lake called the North Sea, and she liked to see the eunuchs in bright garments as they skated skillfully on the thick ice smoothed by hot irons before the fête. These lakes were ancient, and were first made by the emperors of the Nurchen Tartars, five hundred years earlier. Yet those emperors could not dream of the beauty which Yung Lo, the first emperor of the Chinese dynasty of Ming, had later added. He caused them to be deepened and bridges to be built to small islands where were pavilions, each carved and painted and each different from the others. Mighty rocks, curiously shaped by rivers, were brought from the south and from the northwest to make gardens, and palaces and halls were built in these gardens and ancient twisted trees were planted and tended as carefully as though they were human, and indeed to some of these trees were given human titles, such as duke or king. In the Hall of Luster was a great Buddha, called the Jade Buddha, although the image was not jade but carved very cunningly from a white clear stone from Thibet. The Ancestor Ch’ien Lung loved the Sea Palaces and he made a library among them and named it Pine Hill, and named its three halls the Hall of Crystal Waters, the Veranda of Washing the Orchids, this rite of orchid-washing taking place on the fifth day of the fifth month of the moon year, and the Hall of Joyful Snow, so named from the poem by the poet Wang Shi-chih, who, while writing on one winter’s day, was overjoyed by a sudden fall of snow. The verses he made, though carved upon marble, were lost for centuries until a common workman found the stone among ruins and gave it to the Ancestor Ch’ien Lung, then ruling, who placed it in this suitable hall.

Every part of the Sea Palaces was enriched with such legends, and the Empress Mother knew them all from her much reading of many books. No part of that pleasure place did she love better than the pavilion by the South Sea, called the Pavilion of the Thoughts of Home. This pavilion was two-storied, built thus by Ch’ien Lung, so that his favorite, the Fragrant Concubine, whose name was Hsiang Fei, because the sweat from her delicate body was sweet as perfume, could look toward her lost land. This Fragrant Concubine had been taken from her husband and her home in Turkestan, where she was a princess of Kashgaria. Booty of war she was, for Ch’ien Lung had heard of her magic beauty and especially of the softness of her white skin, and he commanded his generals to bring her to him, by force if they must. But she was faithful to her husband and she would not leave her home for any reason, and so a war began for her sake. When her husband was defeated and took his own life, then this princess had no defense and she was compelled to come to the Emperor of China. Yet she would not yield herself to him, and although he loved her at first sight, he would not take her by force, desiring the full and subtle pleasure of her yielding. Therefore he built the pavilion from whose tower she could look toward her lost home and he waited patiently until she would have him, and this he did against the advice of the Empress Dowager, his mother, who in anger bade her son send back the beautiful and invincible woman to Turkestan again. For the Fragrant Concubine would not tolerate so much as the approach of the Emperor to her side, saying that if he touched his palm to her hand she would kill herself and him.

One winter’s day, when it was his duty to worship at the Altar of Heaven on behalf of his people, his mother, the Empress Dowager, sent for the Fragrant Concubine and commanded her either to yield to the Emperor or take her own life. The princess chose to take her life, and when the Empress Dowager heard the choice, she commanded her to be led to an empty building and given a silken rope, and there the lonely lady hung herself. A faithful eunuch took the news in secret to the Emperor, who, though he was fasting in the Hall of Abstinence to purify himself for the sacred sacrifice, forgot his duty and hastened to his palace. He was too late. His beloved had escaped him and forever. Such was the legend.

For her own the Empress Mother now chose the many halls and courtyards, the pools and flower gardens of the Palace of Compassion, which stands near the Middle Sea. She loved especially the rock gardens, and though she allowed herself no parties or gay gatherings, such as she had used to make at the Summer Palace of Yüan Ming Yüan, where she and her ladies wore costumes of goddesses and fairies, as her playful mood enjoyed, yet now for the first time since the death of the Emperor, her late lord, she did allow herself to look at plays, not large plays or merry ones, but sad quiet plays, portraying the wisdom of the soul. For this purpose she caused to be opened a gate from her rock gardens into an unused courtyard beside a closed hall, and she ordered those eunuchs who were carpenters and painters and masons to make a great stage near a pleasant space where she and her ladies could sit in secluded comfort and watch the actors. Her royal box was as large as a room, and she had it raised beyond a narrow brook which ran through the courtyard, and this flowing water softened the voices of the actors and made music of their words. A marble bridge, no wider than a footpath, spanned the brook.

To this place one day, when she felt her secret plans were ripe, the Empress Mother commanded Jung Lu to be summoned. It was her way never to tie two deeds too close, so that none could say, “First she did this, and then she did that,” and so comprehend by chance her private mind. No, she let a full two months pass by after she had made Prince Kung’s daughter her adopted child before she took the next step and sent for Jung Lu as though upon today’s whim, she who was too wise for whims.

The play was going on before her eyes, the actors all eunuchs, for since the time of the Ancestor Ch’ien Lung no female could play a part upon the stage because his own mother had been an actress, and to honor her he allowed no woman to be like her. The play that day was one well known,
The Orphan of the Clan of Ch’ao,
and the Empress had seen it many times and her ears grew weary with the singing. Yet she did not wish to wound the actors and so while she sat listening and delicately tasting sweetmeats, her mind went to her secrets. So, she thought, why not summon Jung Lu here, where all were assembled, and while the play went on, make known to him her will? She must hear his own willingness to take Su Shun’s place, before she could reward him in public.

She beckoned Li Lien-ying to her side. “Bid my kinsman to come hither. I have a command.”

He grinned and made obeisance and went away cracking his knuckles, and the Empress Mother turned her head to the stage and seemed absorbed again in the play. Her ladies sat in their places around her. Did any see her eyes fall upon her, then that one would rise. In a few minutes, therefore, Lady Mei, always watchful of her sovereign, felt a gaze upon her and looking from the play she saw that the Empress Mother was looking at her with long and thoughtful eyes. She rose at once and bowed. The Empress Mother beckoned with her down-turned hand and half timidly the lovely girl went to her.

“Lean your ear to me,” the Empress Mother commanded. The singing on the stage silenced her voice to all but the lady herself, who leaned her head and in her ear she heard her sovereign say these words:

“I have not forgot my promise to you, child. This day I will fulfill it.”

Lady Mei continued to stand, her head bowed to hide her blushing face.

The Empress Mother smiled. “I see you know what promise.”

“Can I forget a promise that Majesty has made?” This was Lady Mei’s reply.

The Empress Mother touched her cheek. “Prettily said, child! Well, you shall see—”

By this time Jung Lu was walking to the royal box. The afternoon sun shone down upon his tall figure and upright head. He wore his uniform, dark blue in mourning for the dead Emperor, and from his belt hung his broad sword, the silver scabbard glittering. With firm steps he approached the dais and made obeisance. The Empress Mother inclined her head and motioned to a seat near her low throne. He hesitated and sat down.

For a while she seemed not to heed him. The star of the play came on the stage to sing his most famous song and all eyes were upon him, and so were hers. Suddenly she began to speak, not turning her eyes from the stage.

“Kinsman, I have had in mind all this while a good reward for your service to me and to the young Emperor.”

“Majesty,” Jung Lu said, “indeed, I did no more than my duty.”

“You know you saved our lives,” she said.

“That was my duty,” he insisted.

“Do you think I forget?” she asked in reply. “I forget nothing then or now. I shall reward you, whether or no, and it is my will that you take the place left empty by the traitor Su Shun.”

“Majesty—” he began impetuously, but she put up her hand to silence him.

“You must accept,” she said, still gazing at the stage. “I need you near me. Whom can I trust? Prince Kung, yes—I know his name is on your lips. Well, I trust him! But does he love me? Or—do I love him?”

“You must not speak so,” he muttered.

The voice upon the stage soared high, the drums beat, the ladies cried out their praises and threw flowers and sweets to the singing eunuch.

“I love you always,” she said.

He did not turn his head.

“You know that you love me,” she said.

Still he was silent.

She turned her eyes to him then.

“Do you not?” she asked clearly.

He muttered, staring at the stage, “I will not have you fall from where you have risen and because of me.”

She smiled and though she turned her head away again her great eyes shone. “When you are Grand Councilor, I may summon you as often as need be, for the burden of the realm will fall upon you, too. The Regents lean upon the Princes, the Grand Councilors and ministers.”

“I shall not obey such summons save in company with all councilors.”

“Yes, you shall,” she said willfully.

“And spoil your name?”

“I’ll save my own name and by this means—you shall wed a lady whom I choose. If you have a wife young and beautiful, who can speak evil?”

“I will wed no one!” His voice was bitter between his teeth.