Imperial Woman (5 page)

This day Lady Miao arrived as usual upon the exact hour of four. There were many clocks in the Imperial Library, gifts of foreign envoys in past centuries, and so many in the palace that it was the entire duty of three eunuchs to keep them wound. This Lady Miao, however, looked not at the foreign clocks but at the water clock at one end of the hall. She did not like foreign objects, for she said they disturbed the calm needful for painting.

She was a slight and almost beautiful woman, the smallness of her eyes being her defect. Today she wore a plum-colored robe and upon her hair, combed high, the beaded headdress of the Manchu. A eunuch followed her and he opened a high chest and took from it brushes and colors and water bowls. Meanwhile Yehonala rose and remained standing in the presence of her teacher.

“Be seated, be seated,” Lady Miao commanded.

She seated herself so that Yehonala could also sit. Now Yehonala saw from yet another window the vast country and its people at whose center she lived and the art of centuries stretched out before her as her teacher spoke, from the most famous of Chinese artists, Ku K’ai-chih, living fifteen centuries before this day. Especially did she love the paintings of the early artist, for he painted goddesses riding above clouds, their chariots drawn by dragons. And he made pictures of imperial palaces, painted on a long hand roll of silk, upon which the Imperial Ancestor Ch’ien Lung had set his private seal, a hundred years ago, and had written with his own hand these words, “The picture has not lost its freshness.” The scroll was eleven feet long, nine inches wide, the color brown, and of the nine royal scenes it portrayed Yehonala’s favorite was the one wherein a bear, breaking free from gamers to amuse the Court, rushed toward the Emperor, and a lady threw herself across its path to save the Son of Heaven. This lady Yehonala thought was like herself. Tall, beautiful and bold, she stood with folded arms and fearless looks before the beast, while guardsmen ran forward with their outthrust spears. And yet there was another scene she pondered on, the Emperor and his Empress and their two sons. Nurses and tutors stood beside these boys, and all was family warmth and life, the younger boy so mischievous, grimacing and rebellious while a barber shaved his crown, that Yehonala laughed to see him. Such a son she would have, too, if Heaven willed.

But today’s lesson was of Wang Wei, a physician born thirteen centuries ago, who gave up his ancestral skills and turned poet and artist.

“Today,” Lady Miao was saying in her sharp silvery voice, “you will study these sketches by Wang Wei. Observe the bamboo leaves so delicately drawn against the dark rocks. Observe the plum blossoms mingled with chrysanthemums.”

She allowed no conversation that had not to do with painting, and Yehonala, always docile in the presence of her teachers, listened and observed. Now she spoke.

“Is it not strange that plum blossoms and chrysanthemums are upon the same page? Is this not to confuse the seasons?”

Lady Miao was not pleased. “It is wise not to mention confusion when speaking of Wang Wei,” she said. “If the master wishes to place plum blossoms among chrysanthemums, this is to convey a meaning. It is not a mistake. Consider that among his most famous paintings is the one of banana leaves under snow. Can it be possible that snow lies upon banana leaves? If Wang Wei paints it, then it is possible. Pray meditate upon its poetry. Some declare Wang Wei more poet than painter. I say his poems are paintings, his paintings poems, and this is art. To portray a mood and not a fact—this is ideal art.”

While she talked she mixed the colors, choosing brushes while Yehonala watched. “You will inquire why I ask you to copy the work of Wang Wei,” the lady said. “I wish you to learn precision and delicacy. You have power. But power must be informed and controlled from within. Then only may it be genius.”

“I would ask my teacher a question,” Yehonala said.

“Ask,” Lady Miao replied. She was brushing fine quick strokes upon a large sheet of paper spread upon a square table which the eunuch had brought to her side.

“When may I paint a picture of my own?” Yehonala asked.

Her teacher held her hand poised for an instant and cast a sidelong look from her narrowed eyes. “When I can no longer command you.”

Yehonala did not reply. The meaning was clear. When she was chosen by the Emperor then Lady Miao could not command her, for then no one could command her save the Emperor himself. She would be raised too high for any other to be above her. She took up her brush and began carefully to copy plum blossoms among chrysanthemums.

Sometime in the night, she did not know the hour, she was wakened by hands shaking her shoulders. She had not been able to sleep early, and when at last her eyes had closed, she had fallen deeply into sleep. Now she came up from a well of darkness and struggling to open her eyes, she heard the voice of her serving woman.

“Wake, wake, Yehonala! You are summoned! The Son of Heaven calls—”

She woke instantly. Her mind leaped to alertness. She pushed back the silken quilts and stepped down from the high bed.

“I have your bath ready,” the woman whispered. “Quick—get into the tub! I have poured perfume into the water. I have put out your best robe—the lilac satin—”

“Not lilac,” Yehonala said. “I shall wear the peach pink.”

Other women were coming into the chamber, waked from their sleep and yawning, the tiring woman, the hairdresser and the keeper of the jewels. Concubines were not given imperial jewels until they were summoned.

Yehonala knelt in her bath and her woman soaped her body well and washed away the foam.

“Now step out upon this towel,” the woman said. “I will rub you dry. The seven orifices must be perfumed, the ears especially—the Emperor loves a woman’s ears. You have small and beautiful ears. But do not forget the nostrils—and the privacies I must attend to myself.”

To all such ministrations Yehonala submitted without a word. Haste—haste was the necessity. The Emperor was awake, he was drinking wine and eating small hot breads filled with flavored meats. The news was brought again and again to the door by Li Lien-ying.

“Do not delay,” he hissed in a hoarse voice through the curtains. “If the one he wants is not ready, then he will call for another. His dragon’s temper is easily roused, I can tell you.”

“She is ready,” the serving woman cried. She thrust two jeweled flowers behind Yehonala’s ears and pushed her out the door.

“Go, my precious, my pet,” she whispered.

“Oh, my little dog,” Yehonala cried. The small creature was at her heels.

“No, no,” Li Lien-ying shouted. “You may not take your dog!”

But Yehonala, suddenly afraid, stooped and gathered the minute beast into her arms.

“I will take him,” she cried, and stamped her foot.

“No!” Li Lien-ying bellowed again.

“Oh, Lord of Hell,” the serving woman roared in distraction, “let her take the dog, you piece of cobbler’s wax! If you cross her, she will refuse to go, and where are we all then?”

Thus it was that Yehonala went to the Emperor at midnight, bearing in her arms her little lion, her toy dog, and from that day on Li Lien-ying, who was indeed apprenticed to a cobbler before he cut himself into a eunuch, was nicknamed Cobbler’s Wax by those who feared and hated him.

In the dark softness of the summer night Yehonala followed Li Lien-ying through the narrow passageways of the city. He held an oiled paper lantern, and the candle within it threw a dim circle of light to guide her. Behind her came her serving woman. The stones upon which they walked were damp with dew and this dew, like light hoar frost, lay upon the small weeds between. Silence surrounded them, except that somewhere a woman wailed.

Though she had never been to the Emperor’s palace, yet Yehonala knew, as did every concubine, that it was in the heart of the Forbidden City in the midst of imperial gardens, and in the shadows of the triple shrine, the Tower of Rain and Flowers, whose roofs were upheld by pillars of gold, circled with dragons. In this shrine stood three altars where the Emperor worshipped the gods alone, and so all emperors had worshipped since the time of the great K’ang Hsi and the gods protected them.

She passed the shrine and came to the gate of the entrance courtyard of the Emperor’s private palace. It opened silently before her and the eunuch led her through a vast inner courtyard and into a great hall and through this hall again by passageways, silent and empty, except for watchful eunuchs, until at last she reached high double gates, carved with golden dragons. Here the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai himself, stood waiting, a tall and splendid figure, his proud face set, his arms folded. His long robe of purple brocaded satin, girdled about the middle with gold, glittered in the light of the candles flaring in high candlesticks of carved and polished wood. He did not speak to Yehonala or make a sign of recognition as she came near, but by a gesture of his right hand he dismissed Li Lien-ying, who fell back in deference.

Now suddenly the Chief Eunuch saw the head of the toy dog peering out from Yehonala’s sleeve. “You may not take the dog into the Emperor’s bedchamber,” he said sternly.

Yehonala lifted her head and fixed her great eyes upon him. “Then I will not enter, either,” she said.

The words were brave but she spoke them in a soft indifferent voice, as though she did not care whether she entered or did not.

An Teh-hai looked his surprise. “Can you defy the Son of Heaven?” he demanded.

She made no reply, and stroked the little dog’s smooth head with her other hand.

“Elder Brother,” Li Lien-ying now said, “this concubine is very troublesome. She speaks like a child but she is more fierce than a female tiger. We all fear her. If she does not wish to enter, it is better to send her home. Truly it is not worth while to compel her, for her mind is more stubborn than a stone.”

A curtain behind An Teh-hai was now pulled aside with a jerk and a eunuch’s face thrust itself out. “It is asked why there is delay,” he cried. “It is asked if he himself must come and settle affairs!”

“Elder Brother, let her go in with the dog,” Li Lien-ying urged. “She can hide it in her sleeve. If the beast is a nuisance, it can be taken away and given to the serving woman who will sit here outside the door.”

The Chief Eunuch scowled, but Yehonala continued to gaze at him with her great eyes wide and innocent and what could he do but yield? He grunted and quarreled under his breath but he yielded, and again she followed through yet another room, at one end of which hung thick satin curtains of imperial yellow with dragons embroidered in scarlet silk. Behind them were heavy doors of carved wood. The Chief Eunuch put the curtains aside, he opened the doors, and motioned to her to enter. This time she went alone. The curtains fell behind her and she stood before the Emperor.

He sat upright in the huge imperial bed upon a raised platform. This bed was of bronze, the pillars of bronze, and upon them were carved climbing dragons. From the top of these pillars, connected by a framework of bronze, there hung nets of gold thread, woven into patterns of fruits and flowers among curling five-clawed dragons. The Emperor sat upon a mattress covered with yellow satin and his legs were covered by a quilt of yellow satin embroidered in dragons, and behind him were high cushions of the same yellow satin to support him as he sat erect. He wore a bed shirt of red silk, sleeved to his wrists and high about his neck, and his smooth slender hands were folded. She had seen him only the once when he chose her and then he wore his royal headdress. Now his head was bare and his hair was short and black. His face was long and narrow, sunken beneath a forehead too full and overhanging. They gazed at each other, man and woman, and he motioned to her to come near. She walked to him slowly, her eyes fixed on his face. When she was near she stopped again.

“You are the first woman who ever came into this chamber with her head lifted,” he said in a high thin voice. “They are always afraid to look at me.”

Sakota, she thought, Sakota had surely come in with her head drooping. Where was Sakota? In what room did she sleep not far away? Sakota had stood here, submissive, frightened, speechless.

“I am not afraid,” Yehonala said in her soft definite voice. “See, I have brought my little dog.”

The forgotten concubines had told her how to address the Son of Heaven. One must never speak before him as though he were only a mortal—Lord of Ten Thousand Years, the Highest, the Most Venerable, these were the words of address. But Yehonala behaved toward the Emperor as though he were a man.

She stroked the little dog’s smooth head again and looked down. “Until I came here,” she said, “I have never had a dog like this. I used to hear about lion dogs, and now I have one for my own.”

The Emperor stared at her as though he did not know what to say to such childish talk.

“Come, sit on the bed beside me,” he commanded her. “Tell me why you are not afraid of me.”

She stepped up on the platform and sat on the edge of the bed, facing him, and she held her little dog. The small creature sniffed the perfumed air and sneezed, and she laughed. “What is this perfume at which my dog sneezes?” she inquired.

“It is camphorwood,” the Emperor said. “But tell me why you are not afraid.”

She felt his eyes were upon her, searching her face, her lips, her hands as she stroked the little dog, and she trembled with sudden chill, though it was midsummer and the dawn wind had not yet risen. She bent her head again as if to see the dog, then she forced herself to look up at the man and she forced herself to speak sweetly and shyly and still as though she were a child.

“I know my destiny,” she said.

“And how do you know your destiny?” he demanded. He began to be amused, his thin lips curving upward, his shadowed eyes less cold.

“When I was summoned from my home,” she said in the same shy sweet voice, “I went into the court of my uncle’s house, who is my guardian because my father is dead, and I went to the shrine that stands beneath the pomegranate tree there, and I prayed to my goddess, the Kuan Yin. I lit the incense and then—”