Imperial Woman (45 page)

But she was watching him through her fingers as she wept, and when she saw him leaving her without comfort, she flung her hands from her face in anger so hot that instantly her tears were dried.

“I suppose—I suppose—that you do not love anyone now except your own children! How many children have you with—with—”

He stopped and folded his arms. “Majesty, I have three,” he said.

“Sons?” she demanded.

“I have no true sons,” he said.

For a long moment their eyes met in mutual pain and longing. Then he went away, and she was left alone.

Before the end of the sixth solar month the Emperor T’ung Chih had received the envoys of the West. The Empress Mother heard the story of it from Li Lien-ying and said nothing while he told it as his duty.

The audiences took place at six o’clock, he said, soon after sunrise, and in the Pavilion of Purple Light. There upon a raised dais the Emperor sat cross-legged behind a low table. He gazed upon the strange white faces of the tall men, the ministers from England, France, Russia, Holland and the United States. All save the Russians wore straight dark clothes of woolen stuffs, their legs encased in tight trousers and their upper parts in short coats as though they were laborers, and they wore no robes. Each walked forward from his place in line, each bowed to the Emperor but made no obeisance, neither kneeling nor knocking his head upon the tiled floor, and while he stood, each gave to Prince Kung a script to read aloud. This script was written in Chinese and the meaning of each script was always the same, a greeting from some Western nation to the Emperor upon his accession to the Throne and good wishes for his prosperous peaceful reign.

To each the Emperor must reply and in the same fashion. Prince Kung mounted the dais and then fell on his knees with utmost ceremony and bent his head to the floor and took from his imperial nephew the script already prepared. When he came down from the dais he was careful each time before these foreigners to follow every law of conduct laid down centuries earlier by the sage Confucius. He appeared in haste to do his duty, he spread his arms like wings, his robes flying, and he kept his face troubled to show himself anxious to serve his sovereign. To each foreign envoy he gave the royal script. Then the envoys placed their credentials on a waiting table, and walking backward they withdrew from the Imperial Presence, pleased, doubtless, to think they had won their way and not knowing that where they stood was no palace but a mere pavilion.

All this the Empress Mother heard, and while she said nothing, her lips curving downward and her eyes scornful, her heart hardened in her bosom. How dared her son defy her even by so much, except that he was strengthened by Alute, whom now he heeded more than he did his own mother? She thought of the two of them as Jung Lu had seen them, their arms about each other, and her heart was stabbed again, and, wounded, it grew yet more hard. Ah, and why should she, too, not have what she wanted, the Empress Mother inquired of that hardening heart. She would have her Summer Palace and make it the more magnificent because her son loved Alute.

Now like an arrow shot from the sky, a frightful thought pierced her brooding brain. If Alute bore a son, and Jung Lu had said that doubtless she would bear a son, for out of strong love sons are always born, then she, Alute, would be the Empress Mother!

“Oh, stupid I,” she muttered. “How did I not think that Alute truly means to depose me? What shall I be then except an old woman in the palace?”

“Get from my sight!” she cried to her eunuch.

He obeyed instantly, the shriek of her voice piercing in his ears, and she sat like a stone image, plotting again, in all her loneliness, to hold her power.

She must destroy the love that Jung Lu had bid her save. But how?

She remembered suddenly the four concubines she had chosen for the Emperor on his marriage day. They lived together in the Palace of Accumulated Elegance, waiting to be summoned. But not one was ever summoned, nor was it likely that they would be, since Alute had won the Emperor’s heart. Yet one of these concubines, the Empress Mother now remembered, was very beautiful. Three she had chosen for their birth and good sense, but the fourth had been so pretty that even she was charmed by that fresh bright youth. And why should she not gather these young concubines about her? She would so do, teach them herself, and somehow persuade them into the Emperor’s presence on the pretext that he needed change and diversion, that Alute was too serious, too eager in compelling him to labor for the state, hers too strong a conscience for a man so young and pleasure-loving. This fourth concubine was not of high birth. Indeed, she came from a house too low even for a concubine, and only her great beauty had persuaded the princes and the ministers to include her name among the Manchu maidens. This loveliness could be of use. The girl could entice the Emperor back to his old haunts outside the palace walls. Alute would lose him.

And all the while that the Empress Mother busied her thoughts in such plotting she knew that she did evil, yet determined that she would do it. Was she not solitary in the whole world? No one dared to love her, fear was her only weapon, and if none feared her, she would be only that old woman in the palace, the dark veil of the years creeping over her, hiding heart and mind behind the withering flesh. Now while she was still beautiful, still strong, she must gain even the Throne, if need be, to save herself from living death.

Her memory crept back through the years. She saw herself again as a small girl child, always working beyond her strength in her uncle Muyanga’s great household, where her mother was but a widowed sister-in-law, and she herself no better than a bondmaid. Wherever she went, that girl child, who was she, had carried on her back a younger sister or brother, and never had she been free to run or play until they could walk alone. And then because she was quick and clever, she had helped in the kitchen and the wardrooms, forever with a broom in her hand, or cooking and sewing, or going to market to haggle over fish and fowl. At night she fell into sleep as soon as she crept into the bed she shared with her sister. Not even Jung Lu had been able to lighten her daily burdens, for he was a boy who grew into a man, and he could do nothing for her. Had she married him, he would have stayed a guardsman, and in his house she would have worked again in kitchen and in courtyard, bearing children and quarreling with servant and slave, watchful against petty thieving. How much more had she benefited even her lover by being his sovereign instead of his wife! Yet he was not grateful to her, but used his power only to reproach her.

And her son, who ought always to love her, both by right and by debt, loved his wife better than his mother. Nay, she remembered daily that he loved even his foster mother, Sakota, more than he did her, his own mother, who had spent many weary hours with that childish Emperor who was never husband to her, and for what reason except to gain the throne for him, her son. Oh, those weary hours! She remembered the pallid yellow face and the hot sick hands always fumbling at her body and her gorge rose again.

And how firmly she had held the Throne during the twelve years of her Regency, so that when her son was Emperor he might be spared the dangers of rebellion and conquest! She, and she alone, had kept the white men at bay and had forced tribute even from the wild tribes of Mongolia. She had put down the Muslim uprisings in Yünnan and the Shen-kan provinces. In peace and in safety her son now ruled, and though he knew her wisdom, he would not come to ask her guidance, who alone could guide him.

Such thoughts forced a dark lonely strength into her mind. Her blood ran strong to her heart and her whole being rose up to battle against her present fate. So wounded was she, so hurt and beset, that she forgot all love, and set her will, sharp and narrow as a sword, to cleave her way again to power.

Yet she was too just by nature to yield only to revenge and she must find other reasons for taking back her power. When her son began his reign a year ago the Empire was at peace for the first time in a score of years. Now suddenly fresh trouble arose. Upon the distant island of Taiwan, whose people were wild tribes, a few shipwrecked sailors had been washed ashore. When the savages saw these strangers they fell upon them and killed them. But they were Japanese seamen, and when the Emperor of Japan heard of the murder of his subjects, he sent his ships of war to carry soldiers to that island. These claimed the island in his name, and also other islands nearby. When Prince Kung, who was the head of the Foreign Office in Peking, protested such invasion, the Emperor of Japan declared that he would open war on China.

Nor was this all. For fifteen centuries the Emperors of China had ruled the inner country of Annam as suzerains, and the people there were grateful for protection, since it gave freedom for their own rulers and yet saved them from marauders, and so mighty was the Chinese Empire that none had dared to attack its tributary peoples. None but the white man! For Frenchmen had crept into Annam within the last hundred years, and in the last twenty had so established themselves by trade and priesthood that France had compelled the King of Annam to sign a treaty, which took away the northeastern province of Tonkin, where Chinese bandits and outlaws daily crossed to and fro to do their work.

This much the Empress Mother knew, but she had wished such troubles no longer to be her concern so that she could busy herself with her new palace. Now suddenly she decided they were her concern. She would declare that her son did nothing, the princes were given to pleasure, and unless such apathy were ended, the Empire would fall before her own life was ended. Therefore it was her clear duty to take the reins of government again into her hands.

On a certain day, then, in early summer, at her command, the young concubines came fluttering into her palace as birds released from their cage. They had given up hope of being summoned before the Emperor, and now their hope was bright again, and in devotion they surrounded the Empress Mother as angels surround a goddess. The Empress Mother could not but smile and enjoy their worship, though she knew well enough that their love was not for her, but for themselves and what they hoped. She and she alone could bring them into the imperial bedchamber. She pitied them and beckoning them to come nearer she said,

“My birds, you know that I cannot bring you all at once before the Emperor. The Consort would be angry and he would send you away again. So let me then send you to him one at a time, and it is only sensible that the prettiest shall be the first.”

She was immediately fond of these four young girls now gathering about her. Such a young girl she, too, had been when she came to live behind these palace walls. She looked from one face to the other, the bright eyes gazing at her with confidence and hope, and she had not the heart to wound any of them. “How can I choose which is the pretty one?” she inquired. “You must choose among yourselves.”

They laughed, four gay young voices joining together. “Our Venerable Ancestor,” the tallest one cried, the one least pretty, “how can you pretend that you do not know? Jasmine is the pretty one.”

All turned to look at Jasmine, who blushed and shook her head and put her kerchief to her face to hide herself.

“Are you the prettiest?” the Empress Mother asked, smiling. She enjoyed playfulness with young creatures, human or beast.

At this Jasmine could only shake her head again and again and cover her face with her hands, too, while the others laughed aloud.

“Well, well,” the Empress Mother said at last. “Take your hands down from your face, child, so that I may see you for myself.”

The girls pulled Jasmine’s hands away, and the Empress Mother studied the downcast and rosy face. It was not a shy face so much as mischievous, or perhaps only merry. Nor was it a gentle face. Indeed, there was boldness in the full curved lips, the large eyes, the slightly flaring nostrils of the small tilted nose. Alute was like her father, who had been assistant to the Imperial Tutor to the Emperor, a man of delicately handsome face and frame. To such a woman as Alute Jasmine was the complete foil. Instead of Alute’s slender graceful body, tall for a woman, Jasmine was small and plump, and her greatest beauty was a skin without blemish or fault. It was a baby’s skin, cream white except for the flushed cheeks and red mouth.

Thus satisfied, the Empress Mother’s mood changed suddenly. She waved the concubines away, and yawned behind her jeweled hand.

“I will send for you when the day comes,” she said half carelessly to Jasmine, and the concubines could only retire, their embroidered sleeves folded like bright wings.

Thereafter naught remained except for the Chief Eunuch to inquire of Alute’s woman what few days in the month the Consort could not enter the royal bedchamber. These were seven days distant, and the Empress Mother sent word to Jasmine to be ready on the eighth day. Her robe, she commanded, must be peach pink, and she was to use no perfume, for she herself would provide perfume from her own bottles.

Upon the day Jasmine came so robed, and the Empress Mother received her and observed her carefully from head to foot. First she commanded the small cheap jewels she wore to be taken away.

“Bring me the case from my jewel room marked thirty-two,” she said to her ladies, and when the box was brought, she lifted from it two flowers shaped like peonies, made of rubies and pearls, and these she gave to Jasmine to fasten above her ears. She gave her bracelets, too, and rings, until the girl was beside herself with delight, biting her scarlet lips and flashing her black eyes in joy.

When this was done, the Empress Mother called for a heavy musk perfume, and she bade Jasmine rub it on her palms and under her chin, behind her ears and between her breasts and loins.

“Well enough,” the Empress Mother said when all was done. “Do you now come with me and my ladies. We go to my son, the Emperor.”

No sooner had these words left her lips than she thought—and why should she go to the Emperor? Alute would hear of her presence, for Alute had her spies, doubtless, and she would make pretext to come to bow before the Empress Mother. But, unbidden, she could not dare to come here to the Empress Mother’s own palace.