Imperial Woman

by Pearl S. Buck

  “It is he who is the robber and he knows I know it,” the old Prince said.

  She could not doubt his plain and honest looks, and too innocent, she promised to speak for him to the Emperor, and had done so. But in those days the Emperor still favored Su Shun, and he believed him, and so the old man had been beheaded and Su Shun then took his place. Her anger mounted afresh as she remembered how Su Shun began to hate her. Only the Emperor’s quickly growing love for her had saved her against Su Shun’s anger. Ah, she had been too sure of her power—look at her now!

  Suddenly, unable now to bear the heat within her heart, she stood up and lifted her right hand and slapped Li Lien-ying first on one cheek and then on the other until his eyes watered and he could not get his breath. But he said nothing, for to bear such anger was his duty.

  “There,” she cried, “and there and there—not to tell me at once! Oh, evil silence!”

  With this she sat down again and put her palms to her cheeks and sighed for full five minutes or so, while Li Lien-ying knelt like a stone before her, for never had he seen her in such a rage as this.

  Another five minutes and her mind cleared. She rose from her seat and walked with impetuous grace to her writing table. There she sat down, prepared her ink slab and wet her brush and when this was done she took a small piece of silk parchment and on it wrote a letter to Prince Kung, telling him of her plight and asking his immediate help. She folded it and pressed her own seal upon it and beckoned Li Lien-ying to her side.

  “You are to go to the capital this very hour,” she commanded. “You are to deliver this parchment into the hands of Prince Kung and from him bring reply, and all this is to take no longer than four days.”

  “Venerable,” he protested, “how can I—”

  She cut him off. “You can because you must.”

  He looked sorrowful and struck his breast and groaned, but she did not melt and so he could only make haste to obey.

  When he was gone she went pacing up and down the hall once more, until her woman was weary of watching her and her Court ladies came and peered through the curtains at her and went away, not daring to speak or even to let their presence be known.

  At the end of four days Prince Kung himself arrived and he came dusty and travel-worn to that wing of the mighty palace where Tzu Hsi lived. She had not left these rooms, she had eaten little and slept less, while all her hope was pinned on word from this prince. What was her joy then when he was announced by Li Lien-ying, who, haggard and unwashed, had not stopped to sip even a bowl of millet gruel.

  But she paid no heed to that faithful eunuch, hungry though he was. She rose and ran to the hall outside her bedchamber where Prince Kung waited, and there she gave greetings and thanked the gods and wept. Never had gaunt face looked so kind nor man so powerful and trustworthy, and she felt her heart ease in his presence.

  “I have come,” he said, “but secretly, for I should have gone first to my elder brother, the Emperor. Yet I had already news by courier from the Chief Eunuch, who sent to me a lesser eunuch, his own servingman, disguised as a beggar, to tell me that these infamous Three have dared to denounce me to the Dragon Throne. They have told my elder brother that I am plotting against him, that I am in secret alliance with the enemy in Peking, that I am bribed by their promises to let me take his place. When your letter came, Venerable, I could only hasten to untie this mighty tangle.”

  Before he could speak another word, Tzu Hsi’s woman came running from the outer courtyard.

  “Venerable,” she sobbed, “Oh, lady, my mistress, your son, lady, the Heir—”

  “What of him?” Tzu Hsi shrieked. “What have they done to him?” She laid hold on the woman’s shoulder to shake the words from her.

  “Speak, woman!” Prince Kung shouted to the half demented creature. “Do not stand gaping at us!”

  “He has been stolen away,” the woman sobbed. “He has been given to the wife of Prince Yi! She was summoned this morning to the Hunting Lodge Palace, and all other ladies have been dismissed. She and her women, they have him—”

  At this Tzu Hsi fell back in her chair. But the Prince would not let her yield to fright.

  “Venerable,” he said firmly, “you cannot allow yourself the luxury of fear.”

  He did not need to speak again. She bit her lips, she wrung her hands together.

  “We must move first!” she cried. “The seal—we must find the great imperial seal first of all—then we have the power with us.”

  He cried out his admiration. “Was there ever such a mind? I bow myself before you.”

  She rose, not hearing, from her chair.

  But the Prince put up his hand. “Do not leave these rooms, I beg you. I must find out first the full danger to the Heir. The plot has swelled beyond our knowledge. Wait, Venerable, for my return.”

  He bowed and walked swiftly away.

  How could she wait? Yet so she must, in agony, for were she waylaid and murdered in some lonely corridor, then who would save her son, the Heir? Poor child of hers—oh, little pitiful Heir to the Dragon Throne!

  She stood motionless when Prince Kung had gone. She heard the wind howling among the many towers of the palace and she turned her head to look from the window. The gusts caught up the sand and drove it against the stone battlements until it fell sliding down the walls into the moat. The waters of the moat were dried, the very clouds in the sky were dried by the most merciless wind. It was the wind, she did not doubt, that burned away the life still lingering in the Emperor’s body while he was borne in his palanquin across the desert plains. How could she save her son?

  She was idle only for a moment. Then swiftly, while her woman and her eunuch watched her, she went to her writing table and prepared to write. In delicate haste she poured the water on the ink stone, she rubbed the stick of dried ink into it and made a thin paste and wet her camel’s-hair brush in the paste until it was pointed sharper than a needle. Then she began to write in bold black strokes a decree of imperial succession.

  “I, Hsien-feng,” she wrote, “I, Emperor of the Middle Kingdom and of the dependencies of Korea and Thibet, of Indo-China and the islands of the south, am this day summoned to join My Imperial Ancestors. I, Hsien-feng, in full possession of My mind and My will, do hereby declare that the Heir is the male child borne to Me by Tzu Hsi, Empress of the Western Palace, and that he shall be known to all as the new Emperor, who shall sit upon the Dragon Throne after Me. And as Regents, until he shall have reached the age of sixteen years, I do appoint My two Consorts, the Empress of the Western Palace and the Empress of the Eastern Palace, on this day of My death—”

  Here Tzu Hsi left a space, and after it she added these words:

  “And I set My name and the imperial dynastic seal to this My will and My decree.”

  Here again she left a space.

  She rolled the parchment and put it in her sleeve. Yes, she would take Sakota as Regent with her, compel her to be her ally, and thus prevent her as an enemy. Tzu Hsi could still let a smile flicker on her lips at her own cleverness.

  Meanwhile her woman and Li Lien-ying stood watching her and waiting for her commands. Weary though he was, the eunuch did not dare to ask for rest.

  Suddenly the woman turned her head toward the closed door. She had the sharpest ears, this woman, made keen by years of listening to hear her sovereign’s call.

  “I hear footsteps,” she muttered.

  “Whose footsteps?” the eunuch muttered.

  He caught his robes in his right hand and strode to the door. He drew the bar and slipped through the crack and the woman hastened after him and stood with her back to the door, closed again, and she heard the flat of a hand pounding softly. She opened the door a crack and looked through. She turned to her mistress.

  “Venerable,” she said under her breath, “it is your kinsman.”

  Tzu Hsi, still at the writing table, turned her head sharply. “Let him come in.”

  She rose as she spoke. The
woman opened the door further and Jung Lu came in. The woman closed the door and drew the bar while outside the door the eunuch stood on guard.

  “Kinsman, greeting.” Tzu Hsi’s voice was smooth and sweet.

  Jung Lu did not speak. He walked forward and made swift obeisance.

  “Kinsman,” she said, “do not kneel. Sit down on yonder chair and let us be as we have always been.”

  But Jung Lu would not sit. He rose and stepping nearer to her he fixed his eyes on the floor between them and began to speak. “Venerable, we have no time for courtesy. The Emperor is dying and the Chief Eunuch sent me to tell you. Su Shun was there less than an hour ago and with him the Princes Yi and Cheng. They had their plot—a decree for the Emperor to sign, appointing them as Regents for the Heir! He would not sign it and he fell unconscious when they tried to force him, but they will come again.”

  She did not pause a moment. She flew past him. He followed her swiftly and Li Lien-ying came after. She tossed commands across her shoulder to the eunuch as she went.

  “Announce me—tell the Son of Heaven that I bring the Heir with me!”

  As though the winds bore her she went to the Hunting Lodge. She burst into the door and none dared to stop her. She heard a child crying, she paused to listen, and recognized her son’s voice. Oh, fortunate weeping, that led her to him! She pushed aside the frightened women, she ran through the rooms until she found the room where he was crying. She burst through those doors and saw a woman nursing her son but he would not be comforted. She swept him in her arms and carried him away, he clinging to her neck with both his arms, silenced by astonishment but not afraid. She hastened through passages and corridors, up steps of stone, through halls and chambers until she reached the innermost of all, and there without pause, she went straight through the door that the Chief Eunuch held open for her.

  “Does the Son of Heaven still live?” she cried.

  “He breathes,” the Chief Eunuch said. His voice was hoarse with weeping. The great bed was raised like a bier and around it the eunuchs knelt, weeping in their hands. She passed through them as though they were trees bowed in a forest. Straight she went to the Emperor’s side and there she stood, her child in her arms.

  “My lord!” She called the two words in a loud clear voice. She waited and he did not answer.

  “My lord!” she called again. Ah, would the old magic work?

  The Emperor heard, his heavy eyelids lifted. He turned his head, the dying eyes looked up, he saw her face.

  “My lord,” she said, “here is your heir.”

  The child’s eyes stared down, his eyes big and dark.

  “My lord,” she said, “you must declare he is your heir. If you hear me, raise your right hand.”

  All watched the dying hand. It lay motionless, a yellow piece of skin and bone. Then while they watched it moved with such effort that those watching groaned.

  “My lord,” she said imperiously, “I must be the child’s Regent. None but I can guard his life against those who would destroy him. Move your right hand once more to signify your wish.”

  Again they saw the slight slow movement.

  She stepped forward to the bed and lifted up the yellow hand.

  “My lord,” she called, “my lord, come back for one more moment!”

  With great effort did his soul return when her voice called. He moved his dim eyes to rest upon her face. She took the parchment from her breast and quick as her own wish, Jung Lu brought the vermilion brush from the writing table nearby and put it in her hand. Then he took the child from her arms.

  “You must sign your will, my lord,” she said distinctly to the dying Emperor. “I take your hand—so. Your fingers about the brush, so—”

  He yielded her his hand, she held it, and the fingers moved, or seemed to move, to make his name.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said, and put the parchment in her bosom. “Rest now, dear lord.”

  She motioned with her hand for all to withdraw. Jung Lu carried the child from the room, and the eunuchs stood at the far end and waited, their sleeves at their eyes. She sat down then upon the bed, and lifted the Emperor’s head to rest upon her arm. Did he still live? She listened and heard a flutter in his breast. He opened his eyes wide, and drew in his breath.

  “Your perfume—sweet!”

  He held his breath an instant, it quivered in his throat and then he blew it out in a great sigh and with it died.

  She put his head down gently upon the pillow and leaned over him and moaned twice. “Ah—” and “Ah—” and she wept a little, her tears pure pity that a man should die so young and never loved. Oh, that she could have loved him and for a moment she grieved because she could not.

  Then she rose and walked from the imperial chamber, but slowly, as a widowed Empress walks.

  Swifter than the winds the news of death swept through the palace. The Emperor lay in state in the Audience Hall, whose gates were barred and padlocked against all the living. At each gate of the great building stood one hundred men from the Imperial Guard, appointed by Jung Lu. Only the birds were free to come and go and nest among the gold dragons that reared themselves upon the two-tiered roofs. Silence lay deep beneath the heavy eaves along the pillared outer corridors but there was no peace in such a silence. Throughout the palace these walls hid the struggle of power but who knew where the final battle would take place?

  Tzu Hsi was now the Empress Mother, the mother of the Heir. She was still young, a woman not yet thirty years of age. Princes of the blood surrounded her and heads of strong and jealous Manchu clans. Could she prevail, even as Empress Mother? All knew that Su Shun was her enemy, and with him the two princes, both brothers of the dead Emperor. Was Prince Kung still her ally? The Court waited irresolute, not knowing where to give its loyalty, and each courtier kept to himself, and each was careful to be cool and make no sign of either friendship or hostility to any other.

  Meanwhile this same Su Shun, Grand Councilor that he was, had summoned the Chief Eunuch, as soon as his spies had reported the death of the Emperor, and he bade the eunuch take a message to the Empress Mother.

  “Tell her,” Su Shun said arrogantly, “that I and Prince Yi were appointed Regents by the Son of Heaven himself before his spirit left us. Say that we come to announce ourselves to her.”

  The Chief Eunuch made obeisance, saying nothing, but he hastened to do what he was told. Yet on the way he paused to whisper his business to Jung Lu, who waited on guard.

  Jung Lu took command at once. “Proceed as quickly as you can to bring the Three to the Empress Mother. I’ll hide myself outside the door and the moment that they leave I’ll enter.”

  Meanwhile Tzu Hsi sat in her own palace hall, white-robed from head to foot, her headdress white, her shoes white, to signify the deepest mourning. Thus she had sat since the announcement of the Emperor’s death. She had not eaten food nor drunk tea. Her hands were folded in her lap, her great eyes fixed on distance. Her ladies, standing near, wept and wiped their eyes upon their silken kerchiefs. But she did not weep.

  When the Chief Eunuch came she heard him, and still gazing far off she spoke wearily, as though a duty pressed her that she would be rid of.

  “Bring the Grand Councilor Su Shun here, and with him the Princes Cheng and Yi. Tell these three great ones that surely my lord, now dwelling in the Yellow Springs, must be obeyed.”

  He went, and in less time than can be told, she saw the Grand Councilor come in, and with him the two Princes. She turned her head and spoke softly to her favorite, Lady Mei, who was Su Shun’s daughter.

  “Leave us, child. It is not seemly that you stand here by me in the presence of your father.”

  She waited until the slender girl had slipped away. Then she accepted the obeisances of the Princes, and to show that she was not proud, now that her lord was dead, she rose and bowed to them in turn and sat down again.

  But Su Shun was proud enough for two. He stroked his short beard and lifted his head to
look at her with eyes bold and arrogant. She noted very well this breach of propriety, but she did not speak to correct it.

  “Lady,” he said, “I come to announce the Decree of Regency. In his last hour the Son of Heaven—”

  Here she stopped him. “Wait, good Prince. If you have a parchment, and it bears his imperial signature, I will obey his will, in duty.”

  “I have no parchment,” Su Shun said, “but I have witnesses. Prince Yi—”

  Again she stopped him. “I have such a parchment, signed in my own presence and in the presence of many eunuchs.”

  She looked about to find the Chief Eunuch, but that prudent fellow had stayed outside the doors, not wishing to be present when the tigers met. She was not daunted. She drew from her bosom the parchment which the dying Emperor’s hand had signed. In a smooth calm voice, every word distinct as the stroke of a silver bell, she read the decree from the beginning to the end, while Su Shun and the two Princes listened.

  Su Shun pulled at his beard. “Let me see the signature,” he snarled.

  She held the parchment where he could see the name.

  “There is no seal,” he cried. “A decree without the imperial seal is worthless.”

  He did not wait to hear her answer or even to see the look of consternation on her face. He turned and fled, the princes his following shadows. She knew at once what made their haste. The imperial seal was locked within its coffer in the death chamber. Whoever seized it first was victor. She gnashed her teeth against herself that she had not waited for the seal. She tore the headdress from her head and threw it on the floor, she pulled her ears with both her fists and was beside herself with rage.

  “Stupid!” she shrieked against herself. “Oh, stupid, stupid woman, I, and more stupid Prince, who did not warn me early, and stupid kinsman and treacherous eunuchs who did not help me sooner! Where is the seal?”

  She ran to the door and jerked it open, but no one stood outside, no Chief Eunuch, not even Li Lien-ying. There was none here to give chase.

  She threw herself upon the floor and wept. The years were lost, she was betrayed.