by Zoey Gong
I place my hand on his. “Life has been very difficult, for all of us. I am sure you have done what you can. Lady Yanmei has spoken very highly of her time with you.”
“Has she?” he asks, surprised, and I nod. “She is a sweet girl. I had hoped that she would fall pregnant, but maybe it is not meant to be. I have a hundred wives and only two worthless daughters to show for it. And the only one of my women to carry a son died because of it. Maybe I am not meant to have a son. My line is not supposed to continue. Maybe Heaven is punishing me for some slight against them.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I say. “You’ve always been the best emperor you know how to be.”
He scoffs. “Maybe that is the problem. I don’t know how to be a better emperor. The emperor the country needs.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. But there could still be some truth in it. I have often wondered if Father should have appointed Honghui as his heir instead of me.”
“What?” I ask. “Why? You were the oldest.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he says, looking at me as if I should know this. “It is the responsibility of the emperor to choose the most capable heir. At the time of his death, I thought that he made the right choice. But now, all these years later, after time to reflect, I think that he could have made the wrong choice.”
“You have no cause to think that,” I say.
“Don’t I?” he asks. “Honghui is the smart one. The calm one. He is the one pushing for me to accept the treaties.”
“You still could,” I say. “Honghui doesn’t need to be the emperor. He could be right where he is supposed to be—advising the emperor.”
“It’s too late for that,” he says. “I cannot reverse course now.”
I want to shake him, shout that of course he can change course. He’s the emperor! He can do whatever he wants. But I know he will not listen to me.
He looks at my face and I think he sees the frustration there. The anger. The disappointment. He clears his throat.
“I have said too much,” he says. “None of this is your concern. I only brought you here tonight for one purpose.”
“Oh?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.
“I must do my best to have a son, no matter the situation.”
I gulp. The idea of having to be intimate now, at such a moment, after such words have been said, fills me with dread. His words make me wonder just how much he is keeping from me. Is he really worried about dying accidentally? Or is it something else? Does he think that he will not return from the battle that is surely coming? Just once, I wish he would tell me the truth.
I want to argue. Protest. Assure him that he will come back. Tell him that this is not the time. But as he said, he brought me here for this one purpose. In truth, he didn’t have to tell me anything. My only duty as empress is to give the emperor a son. Caihong died fulfilling that duty. I can do this much.
I untie my robe. As I remove it, Guozhi softly touches my shoulder. First with his fingers, then with his lips. He gently lays me back on the bed. There is a kindness in his movements. The way he touches me, kisses me. But there is a sadness as well. The act is over quickly, and he does not send me away after. I fall asleep in his arms.
In my dreams, I hear the thunder of running horses, the clashing of swords, and the singing of bullets.
18
It is still dark when I am woken by the light of braziers and the shuffling of many feet. The emperor is standing in the middle of the room as his eunuchs dress him in his battle armor. I sit up and expect to be dismissed. Instead, while the eunuchs work, Guozhi speaks to me.
“How well do you know the history of our people, Lihua?” he asks.
“Not well, your majesty,” I admit. He nods, his arms held outstretched to his sides as a eunuch helps him into what looks to be a thick, yellow, silk jacket. But between the layers of silk, I know there are thin, iron plates.
“Before my great-great-great-grandfather became the first Qing Emperor,” Guozhi says, “we Manchu were a strong people. A warrior people. We conquered the frozen lands north of the Great Wall with nothing more than arrows and spears from the backs of our ponies. We built ships and sailed across the sea to subjugate Japan and Chosun.”
I didn’t realize that the Manchu had invaded other countries as well. I thought it had just been us. I wonder if those people are as oppressed as our own.
“We were an unfettered people then. Riding across the great, grass plains, our domain farther than the sun could reach. We were not constrained to palaces or walls or the fate of nations. Each of us, the eight banners, lived wild and free.”
A eunuch ties Guozhi’s armor closed in the front while another ties more silk and iron plates to his legs. A long strip of armor is wrapped and tied around Guozhi’s neck as if to strangle him. He grimaces as he turns his head right and left, attempting to get comfortable.
A eunuch then walks forward with a tall, copper helmet. He moves to place it on the emperor’s head, but instead, the emperor takes it from him and walks toward me.
“Even our women rode beside us in battle,” he says. He offers the helmet to me. It is heavier than I expect. The helmet is gold in color, shimmering in the firelight of the braziers. On each side and the back are riveted more silk and iron plates. The silk is embroidered with blue, five-toed dragons and encrusted with jewels. Attached to the top of the helm, sticking up several inches, is a long, black tassel.
The emperor bows to me—to me!—inclining his head so he faces the floor. I place the helmet on his head, and when he looks at me again, he seems transformed. He is no longer the sad, frightened man I went to bed with last night, but the emperor he is meant to be.
“Come,” he tells me. I follow behind him as we leave the bed-chamber and walk through the palace to the southern gate. Everyone, maids, eunuchs, advisors, noblemen, go to their knees and kowtow as the emperor passes by.
Through the gate, a dozen men on horseback, all in armor, are waiting, including Honghui. A ring of palace guards is holding back hundreds, if not thousands, of people, those who had fled Peking beside us and in the days after. They are dirty, hungry. I hear babies cry and see the tops of white tents where people have been living. I feel very guilty for ever having considered the Winter Palace crowded.
“May the emperor live ten-thousand years!” someone says.
“May the emperor live ten-thousand years!” a dozen voices then ring out.
“May the emperor live ten-thousand years!” the entire mass of people seems to say at once, the sound deafening.
A eunuch brings over a stool and helps Guozhi climb up onto the back of his muscular, black horse. The animal whinnies at the extra weight, but stands strong.
“This is not the end,” he tells me, “but the start of a new golden age.”
I step forward and take his hand in both of mine. “Come back to me.”
“I promise, Lihua.”
Someone yells out a command and the guards part. The horses form two lines as they leave the palace and head back down the long and dusty road to Peking. The emperor’s hand slips from mine. Even among the large host of horses, I can still see the tassel at the top of his helmet, waving in the wind.
“My name is Daiyu,” I whisper. My heart aches that he is riding off to war without knowing who he is really leaving behind. I regret never telling him, “My name is Daiyu.”
I walk back through the palace, dreading the chaos awaiting me. I’m in no mood to deal with petty bickering. To my surprise, though, the palace is completely silent. I don’t know what the other women and palace servants have been told, if anything, but there is a heavy sadness in the air, dampening all noise. Not a bird tweets, not a cricket chirps. There are very few ladies out of their palaces. Those who have ventured out are alone, sitting, thinking. They look at me when I pass by, and I expect them to reach out to me, but they don’t.
At the courty
ard of my palace, I finally hear chatter. Jingfei. She is sitting with Yanmei by the pond, tossing bits of a steamed bun to the koi. Dongmei is there also, but she says nothing. I sit with them and pull Jingfei to my side.
“Look at the blue one, Mama,” she says. “We don’t have blue koi at home.”
Her words catch me off guard and I freeze for a moment. It is the first time she has called me “Mama.” I hadn’t asked her to. She had a wonderful mother, and I want Jingfei to remember her. I look at Yanmei, who gives me a smile and reaches over to take my hand. I give it a squeeze, and then we go back to watching Jingfei and the fish.
“What do you think Wangli is doing right now?” Yanmei asks me, her voice barely above a whisper.
I hesitate, not sure that this is something we should speak of. I look around, and see that no one is standing very close.
“I don’t know,” I say. “The last letter must have held instructions of some kind. Telling her where to meet him or something. According to her parents, she never returned home. So Wangli and her lover could be anywhere.”
“If they are caught, do you think anyone will tell us? Or will it be kept a secret since it is so shameful?”
“Someone will tell us, I think,” I say. “The punishment will be used as a warning to us all.”
“Can you imagine loving someone so much that you would face death for him?”
I shake my head. “No.” I took a great risk the few times I was with Honghui after I became a consort to the emperor. But I thought it was a very small risk. I was no longer a virgin. And if I fell pregnant, the emperor would believe the child was his. After I was elevated and the risk became too great, Honghui and I did not meet again. I miss him, but I would not die for him.
“I’m not pregnant,” Yanmei says sadly, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I know everyone hoped I would be since I spent so much time in his bed lately. But it has been too long since I was with him.”
“I’m sorry. But there will be more opportunities. He will call you to his bed again.”
“Will he?” she asks, her eyes glassy. “Do you truly believe he will come back?”
“I have to. I cannot imagine life otherwise. What would happen to us?”
Yanmei’s eyes widen and I know she is imagining the worst. All of us taken and given to the foreign invaders as war prizes. The lucky ones murdered; the unlucky ones… I shudder to imagine it.
“He promised me,” I say. “He promised to come back.”
Yanmei is quiet for a long moment. “Then he is certain to return. Heaven will make sure of it.”
We are quiet again for some time. I don’t know how long. I am terrified of the future. My life has been in a constant state of danger from the first time I met Mingxia. I feared being discovered and put to death every day. But that was nothing compared to the uncertainty I feel right now.
Before, my life could only follow one of two possible paths. I would either remain hidden and live a long, comfortable life, or I would be discovered and most likely put to death. There was a bizarre comfort in the knowing, even if one of the paths ended up with my head removed from my body.
I try to shake the thoughts way. Working my way through every possible eventuality is an endless and exhausting process. I stand up and clap my hands.
“Come, girls,” I say. “We cannot stay here, wallowing in sadness. Life must continue. Have you done your lessons for the day?”
“No,” Dongmei answers.
“Have you done them at all since we left Peking?”
Dongmei doesn’t answer, which means no.
“Very well. Where are your books and ink and brushes?”
Dongmei shrugs. I then realize that all of their supplies were left behind. I packed clothes for them, but I didn’t think about the little things. Paper and ink. Their favorite toys. I have no idea where their tutors are.
I call Jinhai to me. “Find paper and ink. This palace must be stocked with some supplies.”
“Indeed, your majesty,” he says. “The emperor’s office will have such items.” He gives a bow and rushes off.
“What is the point?” Dongmei asks with an irritated sigh. “Who will teach us? We don’t have any books.”
She makes a good point. I cannot read or write, so I cannot teach her. But then an idea comes to me.
“You will teach me,” I say. Dongmei stares at me, as if she is waiting for me to tell her that I am joking. When I don’t, her tough exterior cracks and a smile crosses her face.
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” I say. “You are much smarter than I am. I could learn a lot from you.”
Dongmei’s smile gets wider, perhaps wider than I have ever seen it.
Jinhai returns with paper, ink sticks, brushes, ink stones, and a bowl of water. We go to a sitting room and sit around a circular table. Once we are situated, Dongmei dabs her ink stick in the bowl of water and then rubs it around on an inkstone.
“You make the ink like this,” she says.
“I have at least learned to make ink,” I say, but I still follow her lead.
“I like the red ink,” Jingfei says. Yanmei finds a red ink stick and hands it to her.
“Don’t get any on your clothes,” Yanmei says.
Just the act of making ink, gliding the ink stick around the inkstone, trying to find the perfect consistency, is soothing.
“You should start by being able to write your name,” Dongmei says, dipping a horse-hair brush into the ink. I have learned that much. Well, at least Lihua’s name. Jinhai and my other tutors have been doing a good job teaching me. But I don’t tell Dongmei this. She seems to be enjoying herself, and I don’t want to take that away from her.
Dongmei uses her left hand to hold her sleeve back as she begins writing with her right hand. She holds the brush straight, upright, and writes each stroke perfectly. “Li-hua” is made up of two characters. There are eighteen strokes in the first character, and eleven in the second one. I might know how to write my name, but Dongmei does it so much more quickly, the strokes seem to appear by magic. And her writing is far more beautiful than my own. I am almost embarrassed to show my seven-year-old teacher my work. She laughs when she sees it.
“I don’t think you wrote your name,” she says.
“What?” I ask, looking at my work. I guess I did miss a stroke, and some of the strokes run into each other. “I must have gotten too much ink on my brush. What did I write?”
She wrinkles her nose as she studies the characters. “It looks like you were trying to write ‘pretty flower.’”
“Oh. Well, at least it is something nice and not smelly pig or something.”
This time, both of the girls burst into laughter.
“Lihua’s name means smelly pig!” Jingfei says, laughing so hard she nearly falls off her seat.
For the rest of the afternoon, the girls and I write and draw and make fun of my terrible writing. By the time I put them in their beds to go to sleep, they are exhausted and drop off quickly. Oddly enough, I sleep well, too. A deep, restful sleep that gives me the strength to face the days ahead.
19
I am helping the girls with their lessons when a commotion so loud I can hear it in my palace breaks out. There is screaming and yelling, horses whinnying, and gunshots. My worst fears come to the fore, that the emperor has lost the war and the foreigners have come for me.
“Yanmei, take the girls to my room and lock the door. Let no one in or out until I return.”
“What is happening?” Dongmei asks. Jingfei begins to cry.
I kneel down and hug both of the girls to me. “I am going to find out. Try not to be afraid. I’ll return soon.” Yanmei takes the girls by their hands and leads them away.
“Your Majesty,” Jinhai says, “you should hide yourself away as well.”
“No,” I say. “With the emperor gone, there is no one else to give instructions. I need to know what is going on so I know what to do next.”
He bo
ws and follows me out of the palace. I walk down a path toward the noise. It is coming from beyond the east wall. Several palace ladies are also outside, trying to see what is happening.
“Back to your palaces,” I tell them. “Lock the doors until I say otherwise.”
Many of the ladies hesitate and have to be led away by their servants. I understand the strain of not knowing what is happening around them, but I don’t want them to get in the way, get lost, or be left behind should we have to flee again.
As I near the wall, the noises become clearer. The shouts are of men and women, and I hear children crying. There is no army outside the walls, only the people of Peking who fled the danger.
“What is going on?” I ask Jinhai. “Why are the people screaming?”
He shakes his head, but another eunuch comes running over. He kneels before me.
“Majesty, the people have started to revolt.”
“Why?” I ask.
“They fled with only what they could carry,” he says. “They have run out of food. Very few have any shelter. They blame the emperor for their troubles.” I hear another gunshot.
“Who is shooting? Are the people going to storm the walls?”
“No, Your Majesty,” he says. “The palace guards have had to shoot some people who broke through the line in an attempt to get the emperor’s attention.”
“What? The guards are killing our own people? Make them stop!”
“But-but-but, your majesty, they will surely beat down the gate if we don’t stop them.”
“They are hungry and cold,” I say. “Their children are starving. They need help, not to be shot at.”
The eunuch stammers, looking to Jinhai for help, but he only shrugs his shoulders.
“What would you have us do, your majesty?” the eunuch asks.
“Go to the kitchens and collect whatever food you can find,” I say. “Give it to the people.”