Imperial Woman (38 page)

But he was born a prince and as a prince he must conduct himself, and so he did.

Four years Prince Kung spent in the building of the tomb, for time was needed not only for collecting the funds but also to carve the great marble beasts and warriors who stood in pairs to guard the entrance of the tomb. Blocks of marble weighing from fifty to eighty tons were brought from the marble quarries a hundred miles distant from the imperial city, and each block was carried upon a six-wheeled cart, drawn by six hundred horses and mules. Such blocks were oblong in shape but for the twin elephants they were fifteen feet long, twelve feet wide and twelve feet thick. The horses and mules were harnessed together between two thick hempen ropes interwoven with wire and the length of these ropes was a third of a mile. Upon the cart an imperial Bannerman sat to hold up the dynasty flag, and with him were four eunuchs. The cavalcade halted every half-hour for rest, and when the time came to halt or to start again, one of the eunuchs beat a large brass gong. In front of the horses and mules a guardsman rode with a signaling flag. Thus it was with each of the fifty huge blocks of marble which, when they reached the place of the tomb, were immediately set upon by the finest sculptors who with mallet and chisel shaped beast and man.

The tomb itself was domed and it was made of marble, and in its center stood a vast jeweled pedestal of gold inlaid with jewels upon which the imperial coffin was to rest. There one clear cold day in the autumn of that year the dead Emperor was brought amid many mourners. In the presence of the Empress Mother and the Empress Dowager as Regents, and of the young Emperor and the princes and the ministers of the Court, the great coffin was placed upon the pedestal, while candles flamed and incense smoldered. The coffin was of catalpa wood, finely smoothed and polished, and before it was sealed, gems were laid upon the dead Emperor’s wizened body. Rubies and jade and emeralds from India and a necklace of perfect yellow pearls were laid upon him. Then the lid of the coffin was sealed with pitch and a glue made from the tamarisk tree, which hardens into a substance invincible as stone. Upon the coffin were carved sutras of Buddha, and around it eunuchs placed kneeling figures made of silk and paper upon bamboo frames, to symbolize those who in ancient and less civilized days would have been human beings of flesh and blood, doomed to be buried with their lord, so that he would not be alone beyond the Yellow Springs. With the dead Emperor was buried his first Consort, the elder sister of the Empress Dowager, whose name was also Sakota. For fifteen years the body of this Consort had rested in a quiet temple in a village seven miles from the city, waiting for the death of the Emperor. Now she rejoined her lord, and her coffin was placed upon a low and simple pedestal at his feet.

When priests had chanted prayers and the Regents and the young Emperor had prostrated themselves before the dead, all withdrew from the tomb. Only the candles were left to burn, their flickering lights glowing upon the jeweled ornaments and upon the painted tablets which bedecked the walls of the tomb. The great bronze doors were closed and sealed and the imperial mourners returned to their palaces.

The day after the funeral the Empress Mother issued this edict of complete forgiveness for Prince Kung:

“Prince Kung has for the last five years busied himself under Our command with the funeral arrangements of the late Emperor. He has shown decorum and diligence, and Our grief has been somewhat assuaged by the splendor of the Imperial Tomb and the solemnity of the funeral ceremonies. So that the white jade of Prince Kung’s fair name may not be marred in the records of Our reign, We decree that the record of his previous dismissal be erased and that he stand again in all his honor. Thus do We reward Our good servant, and may his name be forever clear.”

At the end of that day the Empress Mother walked alone in her favorite garden. It was a gentle autumn evening, the sky a mild gray and the sunset a faint rose in the sky. She was melancholy but not sorrowful, for she felt no grief. Her spirit dwelt in loneliness, but to this she was accustomed. It was the price of greatness, and she paid it day after day, and night after night. Yet she was still woman and now for a moment her mind, lit by her too vivid imagination, saw a house, a home, where a man lived with a woman and where he begat children. For on this day of mourning her eunuch had told her that a son was born to Jung Lu. At three o’clock, before dawn, Lady Mei had given birth to a healthy male child. Again and again during the day of sorrow the Empress Mother had thought of this child. Yet Jung Lu stood among the mourners and she had seen no sign of joy upon his face. It was his duty to show no joy but now, tonight, when he returned to his home, could he refrain from joy? She would never know.

She paced slowly up and down the garden path between the late flowering chrysanthemums, her dogs following her faithfully, strong Mongol beasts who guarded her night and day and small sleeve dogs for her amusement. Then, as so often she had done before, she summoned her will and drew her mind and imagination inward again, to face the great tasks of her power.

On a certain day two summers later when the Empress Mother had moved the Court to the Sea Palace for enjoyment of the gardens, she sat upon her throne before the Imperial Theater to watch a play. It was not an ancient play but one written by a witty scholar only two hundred years before, in which the villain was a big-nosed man from Europe, a Portuguese sea captain with a great sword on his belt and beneath his nose a mustache like the outspread wings of a raven. The hero was the Prime Minister of the Chinese Court and this part was played by the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai, who was an actor of genius.

Suddenly the eunuch Li Lien-ying, who had been laughing loudly, was stricken silent and he rose from his stool near his imperial mistress and endeavored to steal quietly away. The Empress Mother, however, her eyes always seeing, motioned to him to return to her, which he did somewhat shamefaced.

“Where are you going?” she demanded. “And is it respectful of you to leave the theater when your superior is on the boards?”

“Majesty,” Li Lien-ying said in a whisper, “the sight of this foreign rascal has made me remember a promise I gave yesterday to the young Emperor, which I had forgot until now.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“He has heard somewhere of a foreign cart which can run without horse or man, and he bade me buy him one to see. But where can I find this cart? I inquired of the Chief Eunuch and he said that it may be I can find it in the shop kept by a foreigner in the Street of the Legations. Thither I now go.”

The Empress Mother drew down her beautiful black brows. “I forbid it,” she exclaimed.

“Majesty,” the eunuch coaxed her, “I pray you remember that the young Emperor has a temper and I shall be beaten.”

“I will tell him that I still forbid him a foreign toy,” the Empress declared. “A toy, indeed, when he is no longer a child!”

“Majesty,” the eunuch begged, “it was I who said a toy, seeing that I had no hope of finding a real spirit cart in our whole land.”

“Toy or not, it is a foreign object,” the Empress Mother insisted. “And I forbid it. Sit down again.”

Li Lien-ying could do no more than obey, and so he sat, not laughing any more, although An Teh-hai upon the stage outdid himself to make the Empress Mother laugh. But she did not laugh either, and after an hour or so, while her handsome face remained grave, she signified to her ladies that she would withdraw and she did so, proceeding to her own palace, where, after further thought, she sent for the Chief Eunuch.

He came, a tall and handsome man in spite of his growing fat. He had bold dark eyes, but he subdued their gaze upon his imperial mistress, and she did not like him less for knowing that elsewhere his eyes could be impudent enough. It was rumored often that An Teh-hai was no true eunuch and that he even begot children inside the imperial walls, but the Empress Mother had learned not to inquire where she did not wish to know. Now she looked severely at her henchman.

“How dare you plot with Li Lien-ying?” she inquired.

“Majesty,” he gasped. “I? Plot, Majesty?”

“To bring a foreign spirit cart to show my son!”

He tried to laugh, “Majesty, is this a plot? I thought merely to amuse him.”

“You know that I do not want him to have foreign objects,” she said in the same severe tone. “What, shall his soul be weaned away from his own people?”

“Majesty,” the Chief Eunuch begged, “I swear I had no such intent. We all do what the Emperor wishes, and is this not our duty?”

“Not if he wishes for what is wrong,” she said, implacable. “I have told you that I will not have him learn such vices as his father learned. If you can be so foolish as to yield in this, where else have you not yielded?”

“Majesty—” he began.

But the Empress Mother frowned. “Get out of my sight, you faithless servant!”

Upon this the Chief Eunuch was frightened. He had long been her favorite, yet every eunuch knew that the favor of a ruler is less stable than sunlight in early spring. At any moment it can be withdrawn, and as soon can a eunuch’s head tumble from his shoulders.

He flung himself at her feet and wept. “Majesty, when my whole life is yours! When your command is above every other to me!”

But she pushed him away with her foot. “Out of my sight—out of my sight!”

He crept away then upon his hands and knees and once beyond the door he fled to the only one he knew who could save him from her anger. He went to Jung Lu, whose palace was a mile distant, running all the way.

At this hour of the day it was Jung Lu’s habit to study the memorials which would next day be presented before the Throne. Once it had been Prince Kung’s task to do this, but now, as Grand Councilor, Jung Lu took his place. Alone he sat in his library before a vast desk of blackwood, his head bent over the pages before him.

Behind the servant who announced him the Chief Eunuch pressed, and as soon as his name was spoken he made obeisance and gave greeting.

“Why have you come?” Jung Lu inquired.

In a few words An Teh-hai told of his trouble. “I beseech you to save me from the imperial wrath,” he begged.

To his alarm Jung Lu did not at once give his promise. Instead, he motioned the Chief Eunuch to a chair nearby and after a moment, he said:

“I have been concerned for the last year or two at what I see in the Emperor’s palace.”

“What do you see, Venerable?” the Chief Eunuch asked, pale in the candlelight.

Jung Lu made his face stern. “The young Emperor’s father, Hsien Feng, was ruined by his eunuchs, of whom you were one, An Teh-hai. True, you were not in those days the Chief Eunuch, but you had it in your power to persuade the Emperor, then regnant, to clean thoughts and righteous acts. Instead, you pandered to him, and he loved you because you were a young man and very handsome, and instead of helping him to righteousness you guided him downward, playing upon his weakness and his lusts, so that he died an old man before he was forty. Now you have his son—”

He broke off, his face was moved, and he put his right hand to his mouth, a strong hand, a strong mouth.

An Teh-hai trembled with fright. He had come hoping for support and instead he was attacked anew.

“Venerable,” he said, “it is very hard to be a eunuch and disobey one’s lord.”

“Yet it can be done,” Jung Lu said. “And in the end you would be honored. For there is in every man, even in an emperor, both good and evil. In childhood one is destroyed and the other kept alive. You chose the evil.”

“Venerable,” the eunuch stammered, “I made no such choice—it was never given me to choose.”

“You know what I mean,” Jung Lu said yet more sternly. “You know that when the Emperor, now dead, was in pain you fed him opium. When he was fretful you soothed him in evil ways. You taught him to seek refuge in vice whenever he was troubled or ill. Before he was a man his manhood was destroyed.”

An Teh-hai was no coward, neither was he stupid. The time had come for him to use a dangerous weapon. “Venerable,” he said, “if the Emperor’s manhood was destroyed, how is it that he begot a son and one so sturdy as the young Emperor?”

Jung Lu’s face did not change. He looked steadfastly at the eunuch. “If this imperial house fall,” he said, “you must fall with it, and so must I, and with us the dynasty. Shall we then destroy this young man, who is our only hope?”

Thus did Jung Lu put to one side the dagger that the Chief Eunuch thrust at him. And the Chief Eunuch understood that they were to be allies and not enemies, and he pretended to be abashed and he mumbled, “I came here only to ask that I be saved from the wrath of the Empress Mother. And what this is all about I do not know, seeing that it began with a toy, a toy train, that Cobbler’s Wax Li forgot to buy for the young Emperor. I do not know how it is that inside these walls a small thing can blow itself up bigger than a man’s life.”

Jung Lu passed his hand wearily over his eyes. “I will speak for you,” he promised.

“Venerable, it is all I ask,” the Chief Eunuch said, and making obeisance he went quickly away. He was well content. His cruel question had served him better than a sword, and Jung Lu had only parried it.

In his library Jung Lu sat long alone and so long that his gentle wife came stealing in between the curtains to look at him and go away again, not daring to speak when his face was so grave. She knew very well, this lady, that she could never have his true love, but she loved him so well that she contented herself with what he gave her, a mild affection, a tenderness always courteous and patient. Never did he come close to her, and even when he slept in her bed and held her in his arms he was not close. She did not fear him, for his kindness was unchanging, but she could not reach across the distance that lay between them.

Tonight grew so late that anxiety had compelled her, and she came to his side, her feet silent in satin slippers, and she put her hand on his shoulder so lightly that he did not feel it.

“It is nearly dawn,” she said, “and do you still not come to bed?”