Empress (24 page)

It was followed by the Palace eunuchs carrying the sovereign’s personal belongings and twenty-four horses from the imperial stables; by a procession of lance-bearers, feather fans, painted silk fans, and yellow parasols; and by a musical rearguard of hundreds of instruments.

The pavilion of the Black Warrior was first in the march-past of crimson banners, lances decorated with yak hair, and sticks topped with peacock feathers.

Then there was another yellow banner escorted by two Palace Overseers and their four assistants. The Rectangular carriage, with its two hundred coachmen, traveled ahead of the Small carriage with sixty coachmen, followed by imperial scribes and red, emerald green, yellow, white, and black banners carried by the eight soldiers from the Regiments of War of the Left and the Right.

After the procession of the Regiments of Vehemence came the parade of the Path of Gold, the Path of Ivory, the Path of Leather and the Path of Wood.

Followed by a procession in the following order four carriages celebrating agriculture; twelve magnificent vehicles drawn by oxen; the carriage of the Guard of the Seal; the carriage of the Golden Scepter; and the carriage of the Leopard’s Tail, a symbol of Majestic Fear; the two hundred guardsmen of Vehemence in breastplates, carrying shields and bearing weapons of war in their right hands; the forty-eight guards horses; the twenty-four standards of sacred animals with their armed escort; the procession of the Black Warrior, the god of the north, divided into armored troops in five colors; the Empress’s parade with her horsemen, footmen, officers, musicians, eunuchs, and ladies-in-waiting (their numbers all predetermined by the Rites); in strict hierarchical order, the processions of imperial concubines, each scrupulously respecting the prescribed number of long-handled fans, the color of her clothes, and the ornamentation of her carriages; the parade of the Supreme Son with his regiments and troops of musicians, followed by his wife’s parade; the processions of kings and those of their wives; the processions of the county kings and those of their wives; then the processions of princesses; the processions of imperial Great Lords and those of their wives; the processions of ministers and the processions of the Barbarian kings, tribal chiefs, and foreign ambassadors; at the back came the animals from the imperial Park: tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, stags, ostriches, and birds in aviaries, and the builders, cooks, wet nurses, scribes, tailors, silversmiths, cupbearers, doctors, pharmacists, grooms and horses, slaves, and beasts of burden.

For half a moon, more than one hundred thousand people came out of the town of Luoyang and set off on the imperial journey that traced one perfect straight line across the wintry plain. During the day the processions moved forward in a powerful river of brightly colored waves. At night the bivouacs and camp fires transformed the land into a starry sky. Never in the Annals of the dynasties had such a display of magnificence been recorded: An entire nation was migrating to the east, toward the ocean.

So we could join the sun!

HOW COULD ANYONE forget Tai Mountain with its snowy peaks challenging the skies? How can I describe its immaculate grandeur that reduced the imperial procession to a narrow black thread? Long after we left, the sights and sounds would still come back to me in the depths of the night: the mysterious ceremonies, the huge altars shaped like discs and squares, and the sacred dancers with their painted sleeves twirling between the smoke and mist. In my dreams I heard the mountain’s hoarse breath mingling with the chiming of sounding stones and bronze bells. I pictured the camp fires outside tents covered in sheets of gold, the flames flickering in antique basins, and the torches erected along the Sacred Path, an endless string of vertical lights. The sovereign’s request for prosperity had been engraved onto a golden blade, and at the top of the mountain, he sealed it behind a rock. There in the howling of the wind and the falling snow, I abandoned a part of my soul. Tai Mountain already belonged to the past, but its magic lived on. I had found something more precious than the celebrations: the loneliness of a former life, a fragment of shattered reminiscences, and a quest for a true origin.

Our pilgrimage turned into a roaming progression across the northeast of the Empire. When we reached Confucius’s homeland, the Emperor paid homage to the Sage. As the Court headed north to the birthplace of Lao-tzu, it made offerings to this founder of Taoist thought who was an ancestor of the imperial household. Our return journey was overrun by a radiant spring and its blossoming trees. In the Palace of the Joined Jade Disc, Little Phoenix and I wrote a commemorative hymn together. It was engraved onto a stela that would be erected at the top of Tai Mountain, among the celestial clouds. How long would that stone monument glittering with powdered gold withstand the cruel weather? After a thousand springs and autumns, after the snow had covered Earth ten thousand times, it would crumble into dust. The imperial route would be eroded away, the turmoil of one hundred thousand men marching jubilantly would dissipate. From Luoyang to Long Peace, the magnificence of the present was already being swallowed up in the vastness of the skies.

This sanctification had marked the high point of a cycle that would, inevitably, fall into decline. The ascent of Tai Mountain had given me strength, but it had left my husband somehow damaged. Like a warrior who has won his victory or a poet who has written his most inspired odes, he decided to renounce speech and actions for silence and contemplation.

Since my niece’s death, my husband no longer had a favorite. When he honored my bedchamber, it was to find an older sister’s consolation in my arms. As he aged, his distress took the form of fits of mysticism. His health was failing: As well as the frequent migraines, he suffered from arthritis and chronic dysentery. He spent more and more time confined to bed, and his absence became the norm for the outer court.

During the audience, he resigned himself to playing a symbolic role in the morning salutation and let me lead political debates from behind the gauze screen.

He dedicated himself to his passion for medicine, he built up a huge pharmacy in his palace and would go to sleep surrounded by the smell of bitter herbs. He actively oversaw the compiling of an encyclopaedia of medications and even went so far as to receive herbalists and sorcerers to discuss the beneficial effects of plants. His fascination for alchemy and immortality pills was long-held, and he became fervent in these obsessions. He had altars and magic furnaces built. Like the First Emperor and the Martial Emperor of the Han dynasty, he dreamed of transmuting the body into pure spirit. The red cinnabar that he took failed to cure his illnesses, but it changed his personality. He was sometimes sleepy and sometimes feverish, sometimes full of dreams and sometimes despondent; his days of dejection were punctuated by periods of hyperactivity.

He now slept with adolescents, both boys and girls. According to Taoist medicine, their virginal bodies could rebalance his vital fluids and restore his vigor. In his search for cures, he dragged the Court on journeys with him. New cities were built. Up in the mountains, our palaces snaked between the clouds. As he listened to monkeys howling, tigers roaring, and birds chattering, his earthly sufferings were washed away. He was dazzled by tall waterfalls tumbling from rocky peaks and by rainbows hovering over ancient trees. He bathed in hot springs and explored deep caves and underground rivers, already tasting the indolent existence of the gods.

The years were flying by. Our bodies aged, and our souls trembled. I watched, powerless, as my husband drifted in the opposite direction from myself. He became slow while I remained alert; he became fragile while I remained robust. He was frequently indisposed, and I had never even experienced a migraine. His voice was weak and breathless, mine loud and full of energy. The heir, Splendor, was only sixteen years old when he was designated as regent, so I had to take responsibility for all affairs of State. I would rise when it was still dark, come summer or winter, to receive the salutation of officials that was set at daybreak by the ancestral calendar. As my husband weakened, my authority increased further. Ten years earlier, the Palace intrigues and the complexity of imperial decisions had irked me and I had sometimes felt oppressed by the impotence of power. Now, the government that I had appointed was proving its competence and obedience, and I had acquired all the assurance of a woman on the threshold of maturity. The art of commanding became a martial drill, a religious sacrifice. I was both involved and detached as I manipulated the opinions, vanities, and ever-changing truths of men.

I floated above this sullied world like a drop of oil in water.

The sovereign’s mania for traveling upset the smooth running of the Court, which sought discipline and routine. The work undertaken to satisfy his whims required hundreds of thousands of laborers. Mountains were razed to the ground, and entire forests fed the furnaces used to fire imperial bricks. Precious woods, alabasters, granites, and exotic plants arrived down the rivers and were then transported on carts drawn by oxen and horses. Having imposed restrictions on the people for the sake of the economy, I was annoyed to see my husband setting such a poor example with his profligacy. As he lost interest in politics, he became increasingly fanatical about war: He went from one province to another, visiting garrisons, reveling in their grandiose military displays. The subtle balances I had maintained within the Empire were upset by his impulsive decisions and his obsession for interpreting any kind of attack as a personal affront to his pride-which he now confused with the dignity of China itself.

The deep discord between us triggered a violent argument: Irritated by the severity of my comments to him, the Emperor shook with rage from head to toe and accused me of crossing him with the sole intention of making him unhappy. When I saw the tears on his cheeks and the pain he was enduring from an excruciating headache, I regretted giving full vent to my feelings. How could I forbid an ailing man from proving his power with military deployments? How could I deprive an already weary soul of his futile but precious earthly pleasures? How could I stand in the way of a weakening man tasting the last joys of this life?

At forty two I had brought a daughter into the world; she was called Moon and was given the title of Princess of Eternal Peace. After the birth of the daughter I had so longed for, we had brought an end to our sexual relationship. The sovereign still occasionally showed some enthusiasm for me, but I knew that his doctors had forbidden him from spilling his vital sap, and I myself no longer had any right to desire. The tormented love that I had felt for the only man in my life disappeared, and long-held resentments resurfaced. A bitterness mingled with disappointment secretly overran my heart. I was sad to see him turn his back on a vast empire and a glorious heritage for the sake of his own well-being. I had hoped that, as time passed, he would become a great sovereign, but he had proved to be full of fears and laziness. There were still days when I was moved by his helpless charm and his affable kindness, but there were others when his capricious moods and his selfish longings infuriated me. I disguised my growing weariness with him by lavishing him with affection and attention: I tended to his aches and pains, found new distractions for him, and made sure that I could devote time, patience, and maternal love to him.

I was drowning in the waves of daily life. The caravans and imperial parades snaked through the four seasons between Heaven and Earth. Clothed in green, red, yellow, then white, the trees were resplendent and then withered; flowers exploded and then fell silent. Day after day, night after night, the role of Empress became a full-time occupation, and the discipline I had imposed on my existence wrapped itself around me. I myself had made the chains that bound me, and I headed toward death with open eyes and a dry heart.

An unusually hard drought followed by a famine ravaged the Central Plain. Overwhelmed by the suffering and sorrow of the people, I decided to take on the anger of the gods myself: Considering myself unworthy of my position, I offered my abdication.

MY HUSBAND REJECTED my request, and the Outer Court, in a state of panic, signed a petition begging me to remain on the throne. In the first year of the age of the Supreme Element, Little Phoenix took the title of Celestial Emperor offered by the Court, and during the course of the ceremony, he conferred on me the golden blade and seal of the Celestial Empress. The fine gauze behind the throne that screened my seat was removed, and in palaces where receptions were held, two thrones now stood side by side. Up in the heavens, the stars foretold a luminous future for me, and yet, I could see only shadows.

My husband and his ministers had capitulated. My power was no longer contested. I returned to work giving audiences and scrutinizing political reports, as a weaver returns to her loom. I no longer needed to fight to secure my position. For the first time in my life, I tasted the bitterness of boredom. But it was in one of these moments of darkness that Heaven heard my prayer: It sent me a sign, a gift, a sparkle, and my life was suddenly set alight.

The precocious literary talents of a little servant girl had met with high praise in a report written by the eunuch professors at the Institute of Letters in the Inner Court. I was intrigued by her family name: I discovered that she was the granddaughter of Shang Guan Yi, the poet chancellor who had plotted my dismissal. After the execution of male members of her clan, she had followed her mother in becoming an imperial slave. I had her poems sent to me. Her calligraphy revealed a firm but supple wrist, and her verses had the direct elegance of simple cadences. If I had not been informed, I would never have guessed that these words had been written by a fourteen-year-old girl.

The child was summoned to my palace. Her fringe concealed the tattoos borne by the condemned, and she replied to my questions with considerable aplomb. Her blend of shyness and an indefinable assurance gave her charm. Listening to her, I remembered the Gracious Wife and her soft voice. My stomach lurched: This child reminded me of that devastating passion. Her huge eyes seduced me. Her smile was defiant. I could hear her unspoken question: “Would you dare to love me?”