The Incarnations

by Susan Barker

  Out of your shawl you withdraw a dagger. Both hands on the ivory handle, you point the blade at your heart and plunge it down. Shocked, I instinctively leap and catch your wrists before the blade penetrates your chest. I grapple the dagger out of your suicidal grip and cast it into the darkness on the other side of the courtyard. Whetstone-sharpened steel clatters unseen upon stone. The pale beauty of your face is seized by shock. You whisper, ‘Concubine Swallow . . . Why?’

  ‘They’ll punish me for your murder, you snivelling brat!’ Then I knock your head sideways with a furious slap. ‘Now go! Get out of my sight!’

  I go into my bedchamber and stumble to my dresser, knocking over the bottles of mandrake extract and honeysuckle balm for masking my decay as I grope for my vial of sleeping draught. Unplugging the stopper, I down three nights’ worth in one long swallow. I put out the spluttering oil lamp and sink on my bed into a fathomless sleep.

  Spring tide ebbs and the icicles of winter make one last stab. Night and day you kneel in the courtyard of the Palace of All Sunshine, head bowed as though in prayer. Eye to the peephole in my wax-paper window, I watch you risk pneumonia and death to kneel in the snow and prove your remorse, forsaking meals and sleep and clean bandages for the deep cut in your throat, to become a sculpture of ice. I watch you through the peephole and your pain and subjugation sate a dark species of desire within.

  On the third night of your vigil you are swaying on your knees, as though struggling not to faint. She won’t survive the night, I think, smiling thinly. Then I put out my oil lamp and go to bed, expecting to sink into a deep, contented slumber. But sleep does not come. Under my quilt my limbs twitch as though possessed by the demons of fidgetiness and, after an hour of restlessness, I get up and go to my dresser. I pull the stopper out of my sleeping draught, upend the bottle between my lips, but not one drop trickles out. I rummage about in my jewellery box, but the opium is gone too. Cursing, I prepare to go out and bribe one of the guardsmen to smuggle a bottle of wine out of the storehouse for me. I throw a fox-fur cape on over my nightgown and unlatch the door, much aggrieved at having to go out into the freezing night.

  Out in the courtyard you are lying on the ground. Don’t go near her! warns a vengeful voice in my head. Death is what she deserves! But my three-inch bound feet shuffle nearer and I crouch to peer at you. Your skin is pale as ice and your stillness that of a corpse. Are you sleeping or are you dead? Whereas my breath emerges in thick white puffs, yours isn’t visible. You look so much like my eldest, Lily, I can’t bear it. Leave her! warns the voice. Remember how sadistically she carved up your breasts! But I can’t leave you. My bandaged wounds in agony, I heave you into my arms and carry you into my chamber. How can I let you die, when you look so much like my own child?

  I lay your frozen body on my bed and you revive in the warmth of the briquette stove. Your blood thaws and circulates again, flowing back to your cheeks. You wake, blinking with eyes that wonder, Where am I? then shine with gratitude as they meet mine. Knowing you have not had any water for three days, I pour a glass from my carafe. Now throw her out! I think as you sip feebly at the water. Bamboo is a frozen snake brought in from the cold. Now recovered, she will sink in her fangs! But you are so sickly I daren’t send you back into the bitterly cold night. I cover you with my goose-feather quilt, cursing my sentimental heart.

  I drowse until the hour before dawn, when you wake me by loosening my foot bindings to rub my hump-backed arches and toe-claws. At the deft touch of your hands, that cruel mistress lust stirs within and I don’t resist as your lips flutter like moth wings against my legs and thighs. You pilgrimage to my sacred place and worship there, the lapping waves of pleasure rising to a crescendo and my shuddering release.

  The drum bangs to signal dawn. The sun rises over the Forbidden City and the fearful symmetry of courtyards and palaces within. Your weary head on the pillow, you murmur that you love me. That you loved me before we even met. Your eyelids droop shut and I stroke your raven’s tresses back from your inauspicious widow’s peak. I am tranquil as I watch you slumber. The fury I was certain would seethe unto the grave is gone.

  How did my defences fall so swiftly? I wonder. You came for my forgiveness, and how willingly I gave it away.

  X

  In the Palace of Sleeping Cicada fifteen aspiring murderesses gather in a sewing circle, embroidering silken slippers for our broken, mutilated hooves. Steam rises from our cups of aromatic tea. Lotus blossoms and golden peonies bloom from our needles and thread. More sinister things bloom from our tongues and mouths. How will His Majesty die? By poison or the dagger? Or, if time kindly permits, by the Death by a Thousand Cuts?

  Out in the Garden of Dispossessed Favourites bronze bells are tolling in the fitful breeze. There’s a knock on the door of the Palace of Sleeping Cicada and our sixteenth sister, Concubine Jasmine, rushes in. Her eyes are shining bright and her tongue is taut as an archer’s bow drawn to fire arrows of speech.

  ‘My beloved sisters! Our time has come! Tonight we are summoned to the Leopard Room. Tonight the reign of the Emperor Jiajing will end!’

  Fifteen wagging tongues are stilled. Fifteen needles freeze mid-stitch. Fifteen hearts leap up into throats. ‘How?’ we gasp. Concubine Jasmine lowers herself on to the kang in a perfumed cloud of silk. Kingfisher feathers of silver filigree tremble in her hair.

  ‘Today I had the honour of luncheon with His Majesty in the Belvedere of Ancient Catalpa.’

  Concubine Jasmine piously widens her eyes and reverentially bleats, ‘O Supreme Ruler! O Lord of Mankind and all under Heaven! There is no greater honour than to be invited to dine with His Majesty today! Well . . . as His Majesty feasted on a dish of stewed meat dumplings, I crawled under the table, lifted up the imperial robes and feasted on His Majesty’s dumplings. At first he was outraged . . . not to mention flustered, in front of the one hundred serving eunuchs!’

  Fifteen aspiring murderesses titter to imagine the horror of the pallorous castrati.

  ‘But he soon surrendered with moans of pleasure and, by the time I had imbibed His Majesty’s seed, his luncheon had cooled on his plate. Then, whilst he was in an agreeable mood, I suggested a rendezvous in the Leopard Room tonight. I begged permission to choose his bedmates, promising His Majesty seductresses versed in the erotic arts who will send him to Heaven on clouds of transcendent bliss. Emperor Jiajing consented and waved me away, and I rushed at once to the Bureau of the Affairs of the Bedchamber and named our sixteen names. Tonight we will each be summoned to the Leopard Room! Tonight the Jiajing reign will end!’

  Our sewing circle of fifteen concubines is effusive in its praise.

  ‘Oh how brave you are, Concubine Jasmine!’

  ‘How audacious! How sly and cunning!’

  ‘Our hearts are brimming with admiration, truly they are!’

  ‘Beloved sisters,’ Concubine Jasmine says warmly, ‘it was our sisterhood that lent me the courage and the strength.’

  Then silence descends upon the Palace of Sleeping Cicada. Our regicidal fantasy is about to be fulfilled, but His Majesty’s death is our death too, and fear and sorrow drum loudly in our chests. Concubine Emerald wrings her hands in her lap and whispers, ‘Beloved sisters, I must confess that I am afraid . . .’

  ‘Afraid of what?’

  I speak before I know I am speaking, with a scathing that can’t be reined in: ‘Of death? Isn’t life as a harem slave already a waking death? Punished for the sin of pulchritude, we are prisoners here in this gilded cage, subject to the tyrant’s every sadistic whim! My sisters, we died long ago. Each of us died the moment we were borne by palanquin through the Forbidden City’s western gates.’

  Concubine Jasmine reaches and clasps both of Concubine Emerald’s hands in hers. ‘We will be duly rewarded in Heaven for protecting our daughters and taking revenge on him for our murdered ancestresses,’ she says. ‘The Gods approve of our plot to end his tyrannical reign. The Gods have revoked the Mandate of Heaven and ton
ight we act in their stead . . .’

  A pause. A muffled cough from the periphery of the chamber. Embroidery hoops tumble from laps as concubines flutter up like birds startled by a gunpowder shot.

  ‘Who? Where?’

  ‘An intruder! A spy!’

  ‘Under the lid of the tea chest!

  Concubine Moonbeam bounds over to the teakwood chest and throws the dragon-engraved lid open on creaking hinges. A colourful tumult of finely woven robes are flung through the air as she rummages for the interloper, whom she hauls up by her braids.

  ‘Concubine Bamboo!’ the sewing circle hiss.

  You wince in pain as Concubine Moonbeam drags you to the centre of the Palace of Sleeping Cicada by your plaits. Sixteen elder sisters gather around you, and you cower beneath sixteen pairs of glaring eyes.

  ‘Who sent you?’ Concubine Melodious Songbird demands.

  ‘Why are you spying on us?’

  Your innocent eyes brim with tears and you lisp childishly, ‘I was playing hide and seek with the other novice concubines and . . .’

  Concubine Jasmine laughs incredulously, then slaps you hard across the cheek. ‘Your lies insult us. Speak the truth!’

  Your cheek reddens with the mark of her hand. Recognizing that your elder sisters won’t be duped, you start again,

  ‘Honourable Elder Sisters, I beg you to forgive my trespassing. I suspected that Concubine Swallow was part of a secret plot and, fearing for her safety, I hid in the tea chest to learn what it was. Now that I know, I swear on my ancestors’ graves to keep your secret.’ You narrow your eyes with enmity. ‘I hate the Emperor of Knives as much as you do, and will rejoice with the rest of the Celestial Kingdom to see him dead.’

  The sisterhood of sixteen exchange wary looks over your fourteen-year-old head. Concubine Jasmine turns to me, the one who unwittingly led you to us. ‘Is the child to be trusted, Concubine Swallow?’ she asks.

  Before I can speak, Concubine Melodious Songbird cries, ‘The devious Bamboo is in league with the vile castrati! I have seen her in the Pavilion of Immortal Birds, conniving with Hunchback Guo. We must bind her with ropes and drown her in the well. Or she’ll sabotage our plans!’

  Concubine Autumn Rains nods in vehement agreement. ‘Concubine Bamboo will betray our plot to murder Emperor Jiajing for her own gain! We must hand her the silken cord and order her to hang herself!’

  As more of our sisters vociferously demand that you choke down poison or slit your own wrists, you are strangely calm. You speak to Concubine Jasmine, tremorless and clear. ‘I am prepared to die by whichever method my elder sisters decide upon . . .’ Your tormented eyes then seek out mine. ‘. . . for what do I have to live for after Concubine Swallow has been executed?’

  Your willingness to die for the sake of our harem sisters’ paranoid fears provokes my heart into furious dissent. Your murder is an injustice I won’t allow.

  ‘What proof is there that Concubine Bamboo is in league with the eunuchs?’ I challenge. ‘Emperor Jiajing is the one who deserves to be murdered, not this child. Why don’t we just gag her and bind her and lock her in the tea chest? That should be enough.’

  Outraged, my sisters turn on me. Spittle flits from their lips as they vilify and slander me.

  ‘How cleverly the child has manipulated Concubine Swallow!’

  ‘Everyone knows the way to Swallow’s heart is through her voracious cunt. The sly little whore now has Swallow eating out of her palm . . .’

  ‘Give them both the silken cord to hang from the rafters!’

  Mercifully, wise and compassionate Concubine Jasmine has heard my appeal. She claps her hands, silencing our harem sisters’ vicious attack. Commanding of stature, Concubine Jasmine asserts her leadership without raising her voice. ‘Enough. We won’t have the murder of a child on our conscience. We will bind her up and lock her in the tea chest. By the time they find her, Emperor Jiajing will be dead, and nothing she can say will bring him back.’

  Twelve rolls of foot-binding cloth truss your ankles and wrists. Scarves of silk stuff your gagged mouth. Sixteen pale and baleful faces stare down at you, in the bottom of the teakwood box. I lean into the chest and whisper, ‘Farewell, Concubine Bamboo. May the rest of your days be peaceful after the tyrant’s death. I wish you a long, prosperous life, and I pray that we will meet again in the afterlife.’

  A suffocating heap of silk robes is thrown upon the gagged, bound concubine. The dragon-engraved lid thuds down and you are entombed in dark.

  XI

  Shadow of dusk inches stealthily across the Forbidden City. A flock of black crows soars over the shadowed courts of the Great Within, cawing and thrashing their wings. The end of the Jiajing reign is nigh. The timbers and beams in the Palace of Heavenly Purity creak and sigh of it. The weeping willows by the outer walls whisper sibilantly of it, trailing their branches in the moat. The tormented spirits of those who died in the Leopard Room sing of it, breezing through the chambers, rejoicing at His Majesty’s comeuppance.

  Drumbeat in Drum Tower signals the beginning of first watch. Harem-keepers go through the courts to the Palace of Modest Ladies, over slabs of stone polished smooth by a hundred and twenty years of servants scurrying to and fro. Sixteen concubines, naked but for slippered feet and goose-feather quilts, clamber upon the backs of the eunuchs, who carry them to His Majesty’s chambers.

  Lanterns blaze in the Leopard Room. His Majesty reclines on the bed, under a canopy of cicada-wing gauze. The sixteenth palace lady is lowered before him, and the last of the eunuchs retreats with her goose-feather quilt. The nine-dragon bolt shudders across the Leopard Room door, locking us in. Sixteen concubines, naked but for our slippered feet, our lips red as rubies, our faces powdered white and our hair elaborately arranged with jewelled pins. Kneeling before His Majesty, we kowtow and touch our foreheads to the cold marble floor.

  ‘Ten thousand blessings to Emperor Jiajing! Ten thousand blessings to Emperor Jiajing!’ we chorus.

  Emperor Jiajing beckons Tender Willow to join him on the bed. We are mute witnesses as he fondles her breasts then removes a slipper and unwinds her foot-bindings, exposing her pig’s-trotter foot. The Emperor’s red-silk-dragon robe slides open. He squeezes Tender Willow’s broken-arched foot so toes meet heel, and she stifles her screams as he penetrates the crevice with his engorged cock. A few bored thrusts and he withdraws his wilting erection and sprinkles it with aphrodisiac powders from a snuff box. He kicks Tender Willow, who is writhing in pain, from the bed, and she thuds on to the marble floor. Regicidal desire burns in every one of our hearts.

  The Emperor of Knives casts his gaze over our bodies, stitched up by eunuchs after the massacres he perpetrated upon them. Years of incarceration and torture have eroded our beauty, and we have toiled over our toilette, smearing nightingale’s excrement and other pigments of white on our scarred skin. But the Emperor is not fooled. He snorts in contempt at our cowering nakedness. Jade goblet of wine raised to his lips, he sips and sneers, ‘How the winds of time have torn the blossoms of youth from the ugly, crooked branches! Imperial Consort Jasmine, what is the meaning of this moth-eaten coven of hags? Where are the airy sylphs? The earthbound goddesses with sweet-as-morning’s-dew cunts? These wrinkles and sagging teats are offensive to me.’

  The wine-fuddled Emperor’s speech is slurred. Our exquisitely painted eyelids are lowered demurely throughout his insults, but Concubine Jasmine gazes level with His Majesty, her smile a tranquil crescent moon.

  ‘Ten thousand blessings to Emperor Jiajing! I beseech our Supreme Ruler to look beyond our repugnance, for we are devoted to the fulfilment of His Majesty’s every desire. To elevating our Lord of Ten Thousand Years to the heavens on clouds of erotic delight.’

  Emperor Jiajing narrows his eyes. ‘Look at these haggard bodies! These ogresses’ countenances! Clouds of erotic delight indeed! What brazen lies you tell. I am dangerously close, Concubine Jasmine, to calling the Imperial Guards to escort you to the Palace of Punis
hments to be flayed for deception with horsehair whips!’

  In the chill of the Leopard Room, the sweat of foreboding seeps upon my skin. But Concubine Jasmine is serene and unmenaced by his brutal threats. ‘O Lord of Ten Thousand Years, I beg on behalf of your most devoted concubines for a chance to worship you. Has Your Excellency ever had sixteen tongues lapping at him simultaneously? Would Your Majesty consent to try it? If our Supreme Ruler is dissatisfied, then I will willingly submit to being flogged by the Imperial Guards, for brutal torture would be nothing less than I deserve.’

  Emperor Jiajing sighs, grudgingly opens his robe and lies on his back, and the sixteen concubines crawl, meek and subservient, upon the Emperor’s vast bed. We surround His Majesty, lowering our mouths to his emaciated, biliously yellow body. The Emperor is vile and bitter-tasting from the arsenic and mercury elixirs secreted through his pores, but our tongues lap passionately, pretending lusty eagerness.

  ‘Close your eyes, Emperor Jiajing,’ Concubine Jasmine murmurs, hypnotically. ‘There’s no need for Your Majesty to torment his sight with our odiousness.’

  The Son of Heaven lowers his eyelids, succumbing to the sensual pleasure. Tongues incessantly licking, we slide our slippers from our feet and work our foot-binding strips loose. His Majesty’s serpent rears up and stares at us with his lone Cyclops eye but, fortunately, does not report its findings to his master. When Concubine Jasmine sees that every one of us has a length of foot-binding cloth in her hands, she ceases licking and raises a phoenix-embroidered pillow over Emperor Jiajing’s head. ‘Now!’ she cries, and smothers the Emperor with the satin pillow, suppressing his screams as three or four concubines restrain each limb and lash it, with foot-binding strips, to a bedpost. Jasmine lifts the pillow and I stuff his mouth with silk scarves and gag him with the sash of his dragon’s robe.

  Emperor Jiajing is apoplectic, his bulging eyes threatening to leap out of their sockets. His Majesty struggles against the restraints but, weakened by poisonous elixirs, he barely strains the knots.