Imperial Woman (50 page)

“Majesty, I am not come to you on my own behalf, for I am rewarded enough by your past generosity. It is your greatness now that I invoke and on behalf of the Empress Dowager and your co-Regent.”

“Is she ill?” the Empress asked with mild interest.

“Indeed, Majesty, it may be said that she is ill from much distress of mind,” Prince Kung replied.

“And what distress has she?” the Empress, still distant.

“Majesty, I do not know whether it has come to your ears that the eunuch Li Lien-ying has grown arrogant beyond all bearing. He even calls himself Lord of Nine Thousand Years, a title which was first given to that most evil eunuch of the Emperor Chu Yu-chiao, in the Ming Dynasty. Majesty, you know that such a title means the eunuch Li Lien-ying holds himself second only to the Emperor, who alone is Lord of Ten Thousand Years.”

The Empress smiled her cool smile. “Am I to be blamed for what the lesser folk of the palaces call one who is their master? This eunuch rules them for me. It is his duty, for how can I busy myself with the small affairs of my royal household when I bear the burdens of my nation and my people? Who rules well is always hated.”

Prince Kung folded his arms and kept his eyes no higher than the imperial footstool but his mouth was grim. “Majesty,” he said, “if it were the lesser folk who rebel, I would not stand here before the Dragon Throne. But the one with whom this eunuch is most rude, most cruel, and indeed most arrogant is the co-Regent herself, the Empress Dowager.”

“Indeed,” the Empress observed. “And why does not my sister-Regent herself complain to me? Am I not generous to her in all ways, have I ever failed in duty to her? I think not! If she cannot perform the ceremonies and the rites it is because her health is frail, her body weak, her mind depressed. It has been necessary for me to do what she could not. If she complains, let it be to me.”

Upon this she dismissed the prince with her right hand uplifted, and he could only go, aware of her displeasure.

For the Empress, nevertheless, the day was spoiled. She had no heart to walk about the gardens, though the air was freshened by the recent dust storms, and the sun shone down without a cloud between heaven and earth. No, she went into a distant palace and there she secluded herself, wrapped about with the cloak of her great loneliness. Of love she dreamed no more, and she had only fear. Yet fear must be absolute or it too was not enough. No one must dare to complain of her or of those who served her. She would silence every tongue that did not praise her. Yet still she preferred mercy, if mercy were enough.

Upon this, she went with her ladies to the Buddhist temple within the palace walls and she burned incense before her favorite Kuan Yin. There in the silence of her own heart, she prayed the goddess to enlighten her and teach her mercy, and she prayed that Sakota might awaken to the grace of mercy shown her so that life could be saved.

Strengthened by her prayers, the Empress then sent messengers to the Eastern Palace and announced her coming. There she went in the twilight of the day and she found Sakota lying in her bed beneath a quilt of amber satin.

“I would rise, Sister,” Sakota said in her high complaining voice, “except that today my legs gave way beneath me. I have such pains in my joints that I dare not move.”

The Empress sat down in a great chair that had been placed for her, and she sent away her ladies so that she could be alone with this weak woman. When they were alone she spoke bluntly, as she had used to do when they were children under the same roof.

“Sakota,” she said, “I will not accept complaints made to others. If you are not pleased, then tell me yourself what you would have. I will yield you what I can, but you are not to destroy my palace from within.”

Now whether Prince Kung had fed some sort of alien strength into this foolish lady or whether she was goaded by her own despair, who can tell? For when she heard these words she raised herself on her elbow and she looked at the Empress with sullen eyes and she said:

“You forget that I am above you, Orchid, and by every right and law. You are the usurper and there are those who tell me so. I have my friends and followers, though you think I have not!”

Had a kitten sprung into a tigress, the Empress could not have been more surprised than she was now. She rose up from her chair and ran at Sakota and seized her by the ears and shook her.

“Why, you—you weak worm!” she cried between her grinding teeth. “You ungrateful worthless fool, to whom I am too kind—”

But Sakota, thus goaded, reached out her neck and bit the Empress on the fleshy part of her lower thumb and her teeth clung there until the Empress was compelled to loose her jaws by force while the blood streamed down her wrist and dripped upon her imperial-yellow robe.

“I am not sorry,” Sakota babbled. “I am only glad. Now you know I am not helpless.”

The Empress answered not a word. She drew her silk kerchief from its jade button at her shoulder and she wrapped it about her wounded hand. Then still without a word she turned and walked in her most stately fashion from the room. Outside, the eunuchs and the serving women were clustered, their ears pressed against the doors. Now all fell back, and her ladies, standing near, their faces grave, their eyes startled, could only bow in silence as she passed and then fall in behind her, for who dares irreverence when a royal tigress goes to battle?

As for the Empress, she returned to her own palace. In the dead of that night, after long and lonely thought, her aching hand against her bosom, she struck the silver gong that summoned Li Lien-ying. He came in alone and stood before her. So close these two were that he was always somewhere near her, and he knew through listening ears what had befallen.

“Majesty, your hand pains you,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “That female’s teeth hold the poison of a viper.”

“Let me dress the wound for you,” he said. “I have a skill from an old uncle, now dead, who was a physician.”

She let him take the silk handkerchief away, and he did it tenderly, pouring hot water from the kettle on her brazier into a basin and adding cold enough to make the water no more than flesh warm. Then while the water soaked the hardened blood away he washed her hand clean and dried it on a towel.

“Can you bear more pain, Majesty?” he asked.

“Have you need to ask?” she answered.

“No,” he said. And with that he took a coal from the brazier between his thick thumb and finger and he pressed it into her wound to cleanse it. She did not shrink and made no moan. Then he threw down the coal, and he opened a box to which she pointed and chose from it a clean white silk kerchief and he bound her hand again.

“A little opium tonight, Majesty,” he said, “and by tomorrow the pain will be gone.”

“Yes,” she said carelessly.

He stood waiting then, while she seemed to muse as though she had forgot her burning hand. At last she spoke.

“When there is a noxious weed within a garden, what is there to do but pluck it out and by the root?”

“Indeed, what else ?” he agreed.

“Alas,” she said, “I can but depend on one who is most loyal.”

“That am I, your servant,” he said.

They exchanged one look, a long look, and he bowed and went away.

She called her serving woman then, who made ready an opium pipe and helped her to bed, and sucking in the sweetish smoke, the Empress gave herself to dreamless sleep.

On the tenth day of this same month Sakota, Empress Dowager, fell ill of a strange and sudden illness, which could not be cured by all the zeal of the Court physicians. Before their remedies could reach her vital organs, she died, convulsed by inner agonies. An hour before her death when already she knew her fate, she roused herself and asked for a scribe, and to him she spoke this edict, to be sent forth when she was gone. These were her dying words:

“Though I am of good frame and had imagined that I would surely live to a ripe old age, yesterday I was stricken with an unknown illness, exceedingly painful, and now it appears that I must depart this world. The night draws near, all hope is gone. I am forty-five years of age. For twenty years I have held the high position of the Regent of the Empire. Many titles have been given me, and rewards accorded me for virtue and for grace. Why should I therefore fear to die? I do but ask that the twenty-seven months of usual mourning be reduced to twenty-seven days, in order that the thrift and sobriety in which I have lived may also mark my end. I have not desired pomp or vain display in all my life, nor do I wish them for my funeral.”

This edict was sent forth by Prince Kung in the name of the dead, and the Empress said nothing, though she knew that such last words reproached her for her own extravagance and love of beauty. Nevertheless she kept the added bitterness within her heart and when, in yet another year, a new disaster fell upon the nation, she took the chance once more to blame Prince Kung. Here was the circumstance. Frenchmen had claimed the province of Tongking as booty, and when the Empress sent a fleet of Chinese junks into the river Min to expel them, the Frenchmen were victorious and the fleet was destroyed. Upon this the Empress fell into a mighty rage and she wrote an edict with her own hands, accusing Prince Kung of incompetence, if not of treason, and though she made her words mild and full of mercy, she made the blow severe. Thus she wrote:

“We recognize the past merits of Prince Kung and therefore we will, in clemency, allow this prince to retain his hereditary princedom, and all the emoluments thereby, but he is hereby deprived of all his offices and also of his double salary.”

And with Prince Kung the Empress dismissed also his several colleagues. In his place she put Prince Ch’un, the husband of her sister and the father of the little Emperor, and with him such princes as she chose. Her clansmen were angry, for Prince Ch’un was thus made chief of state and at her command, and they feared he would set up a dynasty of his own, usurping that of T’ung Chih. But the Empress feared no one on earth or in the heavens. Her enemies were gone and in her lonely pride she silenced all who opposed her. Yet she was too prudent to appear a tyrant without reason and when the Censor Erh-hsün sent his memorial before her, declaring that if Prince Ch’un were given so much power then was the Grand Council useless, she remembered that this censor was a good and upright man, experienced as the one-time Viceroy of Manchuria and again as her Viceroy in the province of Szechuen, and she answered him with care. In an edict which she commanded sent to all parts of the realm, she observed that by law and custom a prince of the blood should never have held such power as she had given to Prince Kung. Yet she had been compelled to summon what aid she could in her task of rebuilding the nation to its former strength and glory. Moreover, she said, Prince Ch’un’s present appointment was only temporary. And she closed her edict thus:

“You, Princes and Ministers, do not realize how great and numerous are the problems with which We must deal alone. As to the Grand Council, let the Councilors beware of making Prince Ch’un’s position an excuse for shirking their responsibilities. In conclusion, We desire that in the future Our Ministers pay more respect to the motives behind their Sovereign’s actions, and abstain from troubling Us with their querulous complaints. The Memorialist’s requests are hereby refused.”

It was ever her habit to write in plain firm language, without wasteful ceremonial words, and when her ministers and princes received this edict they were speechless. In such silence the Empress ruled for seven years and as a tyrant absolute and gracious.

They were good years. The Empress, surrounded by the silence of her princes and her ministers, gave few audiences. She observed the ceremonies carefully nevertheless, and considered the wishes of her people. She proclaimed all festivals and allowed many holidays and Heaven approved her reign, for in all these years there was neither flood nor drought and harvests were plenteous. Nor was there war anywhere throughout her realm. In distant places her foreign foes maintained themselves but they did not come out for battle. Moreover, since she ruled by fear, her subjects carried no rumors to her ears and her councilors hid their doubts inside their minds.

In such tranquility the Empress could devote herself to the fulfillment of her dream. It was to complete the building of the new Summer Palace. She let her wish be known and when the people heard it, they sent gifts of gold and silver, and provinces doubled their tribute. Nor would she allow anyone to think her dream was only for herself. In edicts, which she wrote as letters to her subjects, she gave thanks to them and declared that the Summer Palace would be her retreat when she had given the Throne to its rightful heir, Kwang Hsü, the young Emperor, her nephew and adopted son, which she would do, she promised, as soon as he had completed his seventeenth year.

Thus the Empress made even her dream seem righteous before the people, and so it seemed also to her. As pleasant duty, then, she spent her time in designing and causing to be built vast halls of magnificence and beauty to satisfy her soul, and for this she chose to return to the ancient site of the Emperor Ch’ien Lung. This Emperor, who had been strong son of a strong mother, had built his pleasure palace to his mother’s wish. The lady had once visited Hangchow, a city of pure beauty, and had admired the great pleasure houses there, until her son, Ch’ien Lung, declared that he would build a like one for her outside the walls of Peking. This was his Summer Palace, and he built it with every grace and convenience and in it gathered treasures from the whole world. All had been destroyed, however, by the command of the Englishman Lord Elgin, and only the invincible ruins now remained.

This was the site the Empress chose, fulfilling thus not only her own dream but rebuilding those dreams of the Imperial Ancestors. With matchless taste she included in her plans the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which Ch’ien Lung had made and the foreigners had not destroyed, and the bronze pavilions which their fires had not burned, and the fair placid lake. But other ruins she would not rebuild or have removed. Let them stand, she said, for memory’s sake, to lead the minds of men to ponder on the end of life and how all palaces may be destroyed by time and enemies.