Imperial Woman (55 page)

“He kneels,” she said indifferently. “It is his duty to his Elder.”

But she knew that it was true that Li Lien-ying in his impudent self-confidence did keep the Emperor kneeling. And she was guilty, too, for she pretended that she did not know it. Her greatness was penetrated with such small mischiefs, and she knew her smallness as well as her greatness, and did not change herself, accepting what she was.

Jung Lu spoke on. “I know, too, that your eunuchs have compelled the Son of Heaven to pay them bribes to bring him to you, as though he were but a palace official. This is not fitting and well you know it.”

“I know it,” she said, half laughing, “but he is so meek, so frightened of me, that he tempts me to torture.”

“Not so frightened as you think,” Jung Lu retorted. “The hundred edicts are not the work of a weak man. Remember that he is your nephew, his blood of the clan blood of Yehonala.”

His grave eyes, his solemn voice, compelled her to her greater self. She turned her head away and would not look at him. This, this was the man she feared. Her heart trembled at the knowledge, and the strange impulse of lost youth rushed into her blood. Her mouth went dry, her eyelids burned. Had she missed life itself? And now she was too old, even for the memory of love. What she had lost was lost without recall.

“The plot,” she murmured, “you said the plot—”

“It is to surround this palace,” he said, “and force you to immolate yourself, promise never to decree again, promise to put away your spies, to yield the great imperial seal, and employ yourself henceforth with flowers, caged singing birds, your favorite dogs—”

“But why?” she cried. Her fan dropped, her hands fell helpless on her knees.

“You are the obstacle,” he told her. “But for you they could bring a new nation into being, a nation shaped and modeled on the West—”

“Railroads, I suppose,” she cried, “guns, navies, wars, armies, attacks on other peoples, the seizure of lands and goods—” She leaped from her carved chair and flung up her hands and tore at her headdress. “No, no—I will not see our realm destroyed! It is the heritage of glory from our Ancestors. I love these people whom I rule. They are my subjects, and I am not foreign to them. Two hundred years the Dragon Throne was ours and now is mine. My nephew has betrayed me and in me all our ancestors.”

Jung Lu rose beside her. “Command me, Majesty—”

His words restored her. “Hear me, then. Summon to me at once my Grand Council. All must be secret. Let the leaders of our imperial clan come also. They will beseech me to depose my nephew, they will implore me to return to the Dragon Throne. They will say my nephew has betrayed the country to our enemies. This time I will hear them and make ready to do what they ask. Your own armies must replace the Imperial Guardsmen at the Forbidden Palace. When the Emperor enters Chung Ho Hall tomorrow at dawn for the autumnal sacrifices to our tutelary gods let him be seized and brought here and placed upon that small island in the middle of the lake, which is called Ocean Terrace. There let him wait, imprisoned, for my coming.”

She was herself again, her vigorous mind at work, imagination seeing all the scenes ahead as though she planned a play. Jung Lu spoke behind his hand, his eyes glittering upon her.

“You wonder,” he murmured, “you Empress of the Universe! What man’s mind can run like yours from yesterday beyond tomorrow? I need not ask a question. The plan is perfect.”

They faced each other full, he stood a long moment and then he left her.

In two hours the Grand Councilors arrived, their bearers running through the night to bring them to the Empress. She sat upon her throne robed in imperial garments, her phoenix-gilded satins, her jeweled headdress set as a crown upon her head. Two tall torches flamed beside her and blazed upon the gold threads of her robes, and glittered on her jewels and in her eyes. Each prince stood within the circle of his men and at a sign from the eunuchs all fell to their knees before her. She told them why she summoned them.

“Great princes, kinsmen, ministers and councilors,” she said, “there is a plot against me in the imperial city. My nephew, whom I made Emperor, designs to put me into prison and kill me. When I am dead he plans to rout you all and set up new men who will obey his will. Our old ancient habits are to end, our wisdom flouted, our schools destroyed. New schools, new ways, new thoughts are now to be put in their place. Our enemies, the foreigners, are to be our guides. Is this not treason?”

“Treason, treason!” they shouted one and all.

She put out her hands with her old coaxing grace. “Rise, I pray you,” she said. “Sit down as though you were my brothers, and let us reason together how to foil this hideous plot. I do not fear my death but the death of our nation, the enslavement of our people. Who will protect them when I am gone?”

At this Jung Lu stood up to speak. “Majesty,” he said, “your general, Yuan Shih-k’ai, is here. I thought it well to summon him and now I beg that he himself may tell the plot.”

The Empress inclined her head to signify permission and Yuan Shih-k’ai came forward, wearing his warrior robes, his broad sword hanging from his girdle, and he made obeisance.

“On the morning of the fifth day of this moon,” he said in a high level voice, “I was summoned for the last time before the Son of Heaven. I had been summoned thrice before to hear the plot, but this was the last audience until the deed was done. The hour was early. The Emperor sat upon the Dragon Throne in all but darkness, for the light of morning had not yet reached the Throne Hall. He beckoned me to come near and hear him whisper his commands and I did so. He bade me make all haste to Tientsin. There I was to put to death the Viceroy Jung Lu. When this was done I was to hasten homeward again to Peking and, bringing all my soldiers with me, I was to seize you, Majesty and Sacred Mother, and lock you in your palace. Then I was to find the imperial seal and myself take it to the Son of Heaven. The seal, he said, should have been his when he ascended to the Throne, and he could not forgive you, Majesty, he said, because you have kept it for yourself, compelling him, he said, to send his edicts forth signed only by his own private seal, and thereby proving to all the people that you did not trust him. For sign that his command was absolute he gave me a small gold arrow for my authority.”

And Yuan Shih-k’ai drew from his girdle a gold arrow and held it up for all to see, and they groaned.

“And what reward did he promise?” the Empress next inquired, her voice too mild, her eyes too bright.

“I was to be the Viceroy of this province, Majesty,” Yuan replied.

“A small reward for so much done,” she said. “Be sure that mine will be much greater.”

While the General was speaking the Grand Councilors had listened, groaning to hear such perfidy. When he had finished they fell upon their knees and begged the Empress to take back the Dragon Throne and save the nation from the barbarians of the western seas.

“I swear I will grant your request,” she said graciously.

They rose again and took counsel and decided together under her royal approval that Jung Lu must return secretly to his post as soon as he had replaced the guards at the Forbidden City with his own men. When the Emperor came at dawn to receive the litany which the Board of Rites had prepared for the sacrifice to the tutelary deities, the guards and the eunuchs were to seize him and bring him to put him on the Ocean Terrace Island and there bid him wait his venerable mother’s arrival.

The hour was midnight when all was approved. The Councilors returned to the city and Jung Lu without further farewell went to his post. The Empress then descended from the throne and, leaning on her eunuch’s arm, she went to her sleeping chamber, and there, as though it were any usual night, she let herself be bathed, perfumed, her hair brushed and braided, and in her scented silken night garments she went to her bed. The hour was dawn, the very hour the Emperor was to be seized, but she closed her eyes and slept most peacefully.

She woke to silence in the palaces. The sun was high, the air was sweet and chill. In spite of fears and cautions of the Court physicians who declared the winds of night were evil, the Empress always slept with windows open and not even her bed curtains drawn. Two ladies sat near to watch her and outside her door a score of eunuchs stood on guard, not more, nor fewer, than were usual. She woke, she rose as usual, and as usual let her woman make her toilet, lingering somewhat longer, perhaps, upon her choice of jewels and choosing amethysts at last, a dark and gloomy gem that she did not often wear. Her robes, too, were dark, a heavy gray brocaded satin, and when her women brought her orchids for her headdress she forbade their use, for on this day she would be stately.

Yet she ate her usual hearty breakfast and she played with her small dogs and teased a bird by singing his own song until he sang himself half mad to drown her mocking music. Meanwhile Li Lien-ying waited in the outer hall until at last she summoned him.

“Is all well?” she asked when he appeared.

“Majesty, your command has been obeyed,” he said.

“Is our guest on the Ocean Terrace Island?” she inquired. Her red lips quivered as though with secret laughter.

“Majesty, two guests,” he said. “The Pearl Concubine ran after us and clung to her lord’s waist with both her arms and locked her hands so fast that we dared not delay to part them, nor could we take the liberty of killing her, without your order.”

“Shame on you,” she said, “when did I ever order—ah, well, if he is there, she matters nothing. I go to face him with his treason. You will accompany me and only you. I need no guard—he’s helpless.”

She snapped her thumb and forefinger toward her favorite dog, and the great creature, huge and white as a northern bear, loped to her side and slowed his pace to hers. Behind them followed Li Lien-ying. In silence they walked toward the lake and crossed the marble bridge, but as she went she looked at all the beauty she had made, the fiery maples on the hillside, the late rosy lotus lilies upon the lake, the golden roofs and the soaring slender pagodas, the terraced gardens and the clustering pine trees. All, all were hers, created by her mind and heart. Yet all would lose meaning were she a prisoner here. Yes, even beauty could not be enough, were she to lose her power and freedom. Alas, she wished she need not hold another prisoner, yet she must and not for her own sake alone but for a people’s. Her wisdom, she did in truth believe, must now save the nation from her nephew’s folly.

Thus affirming her own will she reached the island, and her great dog at her side and the tall dark eunuch following, she entered the pavilion.

The Emperor was there already in his priestly robes of worship and he rose to receive her. His narrow face was pale, his large eyes sad, his mouth, a woman’s mouth for delicacy, the lips gently carved and always parted, was trembling.

“Down on your knees,” she said, and sat herself upon the central seat. In every hall, pavilion, chamber or resting place, this central seat was hers.

He fell on his knees before her, and put his forehead to the floor. The great dog smelled him carefully from head to foot and then lay down across her feet to guard her.

“You!” the Empress said most bitterly, and gazed down upon the kneeling man. “You who should be strangled, sliced and thrown to wild beasts!”

He did not speak or move.

“Who put you on the Dragon Throne?” she asked. She did not raise her voice, she needed not, it fell as cold as steel upon his ears. “Who went at night and took you from your bed, a whining child, and made you Emperor?”

He murmured something—words she could not hear. She pushed him with her foot.

“What do you say? Lift up your head, if you dare to let me hear you.”

He lifted up his head. “I said—I wish you had not taken that child from his bed.”

“You weakling,” she retorted, “to whom I gave the highest place in all the world! How much a strong man would rejoice, how grateful he would be to me, his foster mother, how worthy of my pride! But you, with your foreign toys, your playthings, corrupted by your eunuchs, fearful of your Consort, choosing petty concubines above her who is your Empress—I tell you, there is not a Manchu prince or commoner who does not pray that I take back the throne! By day and night I am besought. And who supports you? Fool, who but Chinese rebels? It is their plot to coax and natter and persuade you to listen to them, and when they have you in their power, they will depose you and end our dynasty. You have betrayed not only me but all our Sacred Ancestors. The mighty who have ruled before us, these you would sacrifice. Reforms! I spit upon reforms! The rebels shall be killed—and you, and you—”

Her breath came suddenly too tight. She stopped and put her hand upon her heart and felt it beat as though it must break. Her dog looked up and growled and she tried to smile.

“A beast is faithful but a man is not,” she said. “Yet I will not kill you, nephew. You shall even keep the name of Emperor. But you shall be a prisoner, guarded, wretched. You shall implore me to sit in your place and rule. And I will yield, though unwilling and truly so, for how proud I might have been if you were strong and ruled as a ruler should. Yet since you are weak, not fit to rule, I am compelled to take your place. And from now on until you die—”

At this moment curtains parted in a doorway and the Pearl Concubine ran in and threw herself upon the floor beside him and sobbing loudly she besought the Empress to blame him no more.

“I do assure you, Holy Mother,” so she sobbed. “He is sorry that he has disturbed your mind. He wishes only what is good, I do assure you, for a man more kind and gentle never lived. He cannot hurt a mouse. Why, I do assure you, Imperial Mother, my cat caught a mouse the other day and he with his own hands pried her mouth open and took the mouse and tried to coax it back to life!”

“Be silent, silly girl,” the Empress said.

But the Pearl Concubine would not be silent. She lifted up her head and sat back on her heels and while the tears ran down her pretty cheeks she shrieked at the haughty woman who was Empress.