The Emperor's Seal

by Amanda Roberts

  Yet here she was about to travel and work with this man she had only just met. Her whole life was about to change, but she was too shy to say a thing. She hoped he would speak soon.

  “Will you walk with me, Lady Jiayi?” he asked.

  She gave a small bend of her knees to indicate her agreement. “If you like,” she said in nearly a whisper, amazed she could speak at all.

  He motioned toward the door. She walked outside first, but then he moved to her side as they walked down a garden path.

  “So, tell me more about your…powers, Lady Jiayi,” he said.

  “Just ‘Jiayi’ is acceptable,” she said. “The empress titled me ‘lady’ only to be polite, but I am no lady. I was born to a very poor family in one of the city’s many hutongs.”

  “And are you Manchu?” he asked.

  “I am,” she said.

  “And were you born with these abilities?” he asked as they turned down a path toward a koi pond.

  “I believe so,” she said, but that was an oversimplification of her past. She remembered the very first day she had a vision in stark clarity. But she did not feel the need to elaborate to this stranger. Perhaps later, if she thought she could trust him, she would reveal more. She looked into the rippling water, hoping to get a better look at his face, but the lighting was not quite right, so they both looked like dark blobs hovering over the darting fish. “I have had visions for as long as I can remember.”

  “How does it work?” he asked.

  “You saw it,” she said. “There is nothing more to it.”

  “There has to be more,” he said. “Can you travel into anyone? Anytime? What about this pocket watch?” He pulled a fob watch out of his sleeve. Manchu style robes did not have pockets on the outside like Western-style clothes, but ones that were hidden more discretely, such as inside the large sleeves.

  “I cannot do it all the time,” she explained. She turned toward him and gently touched the watch, running her fingers over the silver of the round watch face. She then resumed walking. “The visions are…very taxing. I knew nothing would happen if I touched your watch just now. It can take hours, even days to recover, depending on how…emotionally charged a vision is.

  “And I cannot control it. I don’t know where I will go or who I will be. For example, the seal and the box that contained it are hundreds of years old. They have been touched by countless people, including half a dozen emperors. When I touch the seal, I could end up in any time and at any place. I have been jumping back into the seal’s timeline for years. The empress is obsessed with it. My last vision, when I was Lady Cai, that was the closest I had ever gotten to when the seal was actually lost.”

  Zhihao nodded, taking all of this in. “So, you have been an emperor’s lady. Have you been an emperor? That must be exciting for someone like you.”

  Someone like her? Jiayi wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she shook her head. “I have only ever jumped into a woman’s body.”

  “And how long do the visions last?” he asked.

  “Only as long as I can hold my breath,” she said. “But over the years, I have learned to hold my breath for a very long time.”

  “Sounds quite dangerous,” he said.

  “There have been times when I was quite scared,” she admitted. “Sometimes the people I jump into are in dangerous situations, in the middle of battles or on horseback or standing on the edge of a cliff. I never know what to expect.”

  “Sounds like you have lived a very interesting life,” he said.

  She could not help but smile. “In my visions, yes,” she said. “I was still quite young when I was given to the empress. And ever since, she has kept me under lock and key. I am grateful for her protection, for how she has provided me with food and security, but to her, I am little more essential than her Pekingese dogs—ornamental and occasionally entertaining. If I can find the seal, I will finally prove my worth to her. Then maybe she will let me be more than a kept pet.”

  She realized that Zhihao had stopped walking. She glanced up and saw that he was staring at her. She felt her face go hot. “I cannot believe I said those things!” she said. “Forgive me. I am so stupid. I…I should go…”

  As she turned, she felt his grip on her elbow. “Stay,” he said. She finally chanced a glance at his face, just for a moment. He was quite handsome, with smiling eyes and smooth lips. She did not allow her eyes to linger, though, since it would not be proper.

  “You believe me now?” she dared to ask.

  He laughed, an open and pleasant sound louder than any of his stifled snorts that escaped during the audience with the empress. “Well, you are entertaining if nothing else,” he said.

  The smile dropped from her face. What was wrong with this man? Every time she started to think he might not be completely terrible, he would say something else rude.

  He seemed to notice her change in mood and quickly tried to placate her. “What I mean is, you are a brilliant storyteller. You should be a writer. You can write about all these fantastical visions you see.”

  Her shoulders dropped. What would he think of her if he knew she couldn’t read or write? She already told him she was born to a poor family. He probably had no idea what that was like. She felt so stupid around him. He had traveled and been to a foreign university. He knew English and was friends with Prince Gong before his death. Without her visions, she would be nothing, just another dirty peasant living off scraps or a prostitute in a filthy flower house. She could never tell him these things, though. He already thought she was a fraud. She didn’t have much, but she did have some dignity. She would hold onto what little she had.

  “Sometimes I sketch the things I see,” she said. “I’m not very good, of course, but the drawings help me remember.”

  “That’s excellent,” Zhihao said. “You will have to show me someday.”

  The two stood together in awkward silence for a moment, staring into the koi pond they had walked a complete circle around. Zhihao cleared his throat. “I can see I have upset you,” he said. “Forgive me, I…this is all just so…”

  “Crazy?” she spat.

  “No,” he said slowly. “I was going to say new. Simply…new. It is going to take some time to process. You must understand my point of view. In a world full of fake fortune tellers and astrologists, the idea that you can see the past…Well, it is hard to believe.”

  “So, because some fortune tellers are fake, then I must be fake too?” she asked rhetorically. Not giving him time to answer, she continued, “Perhaps you need a new perspective. If I am real, maybe some fortune tellers are too.”

  His jaw dropped, and she could not control the edges of her lips as they tugged upward. He then broke out into laughter again. “You…you, girl. You are, as the English would say, quite a corker.”

  “Corker?” she asked, trying to imitate his English.

  “It’s a compliment,” he said. “Like brilliant.”

  “Can you teach me English?” she asked.

  “I don’t see why I can’t teach you a few things,” he said. “It will take us a while to travel the road to Jehol and back. And there will be plenty of evening time when it is too dark to search.”

  “And history?” she asked.

  “You want to learn about history?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Very much so,” she said. “I always thought that if I knew more about history—the places, the people, the dress, the customs—I could better interpret my visions.”

  “I see,” he said. “Well, I’m sure we will both learn a lot from each other over the next few weeks.”

  A slight breeze blew and she looked up and noticed the sun was high in the sky. “I should return to the empress,” she said.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. He bowed at the waist, took her hand, and lightly kissed the back of it. Her hand was ensconced within her floor-length sleeves, so his lips did not actually touch her skin, but the mere act left her in a state of shock. Men and women never
touched each other, in public at least. He froze, hovering over her hand as though he also realized his great blunder too late.

  “For…forgive me,” he stammered. “I…You know how sequestered Chinese women are. I rarely interact with them. I’m more accustomed to British women, and that is the gentlemanly way to say goodbye. I…I should just go,” he said. He quickly dropped her hand and turned on his heels. He was heading the wrong way to exit the Forbidden City, but Jiayi was not about to call out to him to correct him. The last thing she wanted was to get his attention again.

  She looked around the garden to see if anyone had seen what happened. Of course, she was nearly surrounded by people! Eunuchs and maids, working or just walking. Palace guards. Ministers. Then, of course, there was Eunuch Lo, hovering under a nearby tree. He was always watching. Jiayi shuddered. The empress would find out what happened long before Jiayi made it back to her. Zhihao was so confusing. He looked Chinse and he spoke Chinese, but he was also so…foreign. He seemed to know nothing about Chinese decorum, which was strange for a man of his stature. His parents should be ashamed.

  But at the same time, he was so exciting. She had never known someone who had seen and done so much. She yearned to learn from him. Maybe there was more she could do with her life than just have visions for the empress.

  Who was she kidding? The empress would never let her leave. She would spend her whole life as a trick pony on a golden chain.

  Four

  Zhihao walked away from Jiayi as fast as he could. What an idiot he was! Something about her made him completely forget his senses. Was he actually entertaining the idea that she was…what? A seer, as the empress called her? Maybe she was a reincarnated bodhisattva. Buddhist mysticism was full of stories of men and women with incredible powers. But if he actually believed for a second the girl was what she claimed, maybe he was the actual crazy one.

  Outside the palace, he hailed a rickshaw to take him back to the university. A place of reason and logic. A calm place he could think and perhaps puzzle everything out. He needed to do some research on the Daoguang Emperor and see if he ever was attacked on the road to Jehol.

  He also needed to figure out how Jiayi knew about the history of Queen Elizabeth’s brooch. Cameos were common. Practically every European woman owned one. She couldn’t have guessed that the brooch belonged to the right person, even if that person was Queen Elizabeth. It would have been a one in a million guess. The summons did tell him to bring a historical item with him, so the empress knew he would bring something. He had told several of his colleagues that he had been called before the empress. Had he told one of them he planned to take the brooch? That would explain everything.

  He didn’t like to think that Jiayi was a liar, though. In their private chat, she seemed sincere enough. And a little scared. Perhaps the empress was behind the whole charade and Jiayi was merely an unwitting pawn. There was something very innocent about her. She was still rather young, he thought. Perhaps not even twenty. But her eyes, large and dark, had a knowingness behind them. Possibly during her years of poverty, she learned more about the world than any child should. Or maybe after traveling into the bodies of women throughout time, she had already lived several lives.

  Oh stop! he chided himself. It was simply ridiculous! He had to stop considering that the girl could really travel through time and space by touching an object. There had to be another explanation. The empress was privy to information about the court and emperors of old, information that would be kept secret from anyone who wasn’t a member of the emperor’s inner circle. She knew about the loss of the seal when there was no public knowledge of it. Perhaps she also knew that the emperor had given it to his consort during a battle.

  But why the ruse with the girl? Why not just hire him to find the seal and command his secrecy? Why make up such an elaborate fantasy and involve Jiayi? And demand he take her with him on the search? Maybe she needed to send someone she could trust on the quest, someone who would report back faithfully.

  It all made perfect sense. By the time he arrived back at the university, he was quite proud of himself for seeing through the empress’s plan. Well, she’d have to try a lot harder to fool him. Looking back on the scene, how Jiayi and the empress pulled off their show was painfully obvious. Well, not that it mattered. Zhihao would find the seal and the empress would reward him with an endowment to build China’s first museum.

  If he handed the seal over. The fact that the Manchu had been ruling China without the Mandate of Heaven for decades angered him. Maybe the seal should just stay lost. Or stay in the hands of a true Han Chinese. After three hundred years, it was time for the Chinese to govern themselves.

  “Hey!” He felt a hand clap him on the back just as he arrived at the library.

  “What?” Zhihao asked, startled.

  “Sleepwalking?” his friend Lian asked him with a laugh. “I’ve been talking to you for like five minutes! It’s like you were in a trance.”

  Zhihao snorted a bit at that. “I do feel like I just walked out of an imaginary world,” he said.

  “Oh, right!” his friend said. “You were at the Forbidden City this morning! What was it like?”

  “Unbelievable,” Zhihao said. “By the way, who else knew I was going? I told you and Hu Xiaosheng and Dr. Bennett, the chancellor. Did you tell anyone?”

  “I’m sure I did,” he said. “You going to see the empress is the most exciting thing to happen to me in months.”

  Zhihao wrinkled his nose. Everyone on campus probably knew he had been summoned to the empress. Tracking down whoever told her about the brooch might be impossible. He would have to be more discreet in the future.

  “Did you mention the cameo?” Zhihao asked.

  “What cameo?” Lian replied.

  “The empress told me to bring a unique item with me in the summons. I took Queen Elizabeth’s brooch. Did you mention that to anyone else?”

  “I didn’t know about that,” Lian said. “I mean, I know you were told to bring something, but when I last saw you, you hadn’t decided what to take. You took the brooch? What did she think?”

  Lian was one of his best friends, so he didn’t think he would lie to him. Maybe he just forgot if he had told anyone about it.

  “She was quite fascinated by it,” Zhihao lied. “Anyway, I need to do some research—”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me what happened? What did she want?”

  “Unfortunately, I have been sworn to secrecy, my friend. She’d probably lop my head off if I told you.”

  “No way!” his friend said with a laugh. “Every bit the dragon lady, yeah?”

  “You could say that,” Zhihao said. He reached into his sleeve to check the time on his pocket watch, but he couldn’t find it. He checked his other pockets, but turned up nothing. He must not have secured it properly after showing it to Jiayi and dropped it by the pond. He would have to ask her later if she found it. “Do you have the time? I seem to have misplaced my watch. I hate how bilious these sleeves are.”

  “It’s only around noon,” Lian said. “I need to get to class.”

  “Sure. We’ll talk later, okay?”

  “I know you’ll tell me more after a bottle of baijiu tonight,” Lian called out as he walked away.

  Zhihao bounded up the stairs of the building that held the main library. Hu Xiaosheng was sure to be there. He was rarely anywhere else. Hu Xiaosheng was not a historian in the modern sense; he didn’t do field research or collect information from old texts. Hu Xiaosheng was living history. Eighty years if he was a day, Hu Xiaosheng was descended from a long line of village storytellers. He was a living example of the old world oral tradition. One of Zhihao’s jobs at the university was to transcribe Hu Xiaosheng’s stories onto paper before they were lost. Even though Zhihao doubted that some of the things Hu Xiaosheng told him were true, and most of his stories could never be verified by any existing written texts, Zhihao loved the impassioned way Hu Xiaosheng expressed himself. S
ometimes Zhihao would forget that he was supposed to be writing and would just get lost in the tales. He had no idea if Hu Xiaosheng would know anything about the missing seal, but he was as good a place to start as any.

  The Peking University Library was a large modern building three stories tall. Hu Xiaosheng was usually on the first floor, all the way in the back of the building, surrounded by dusty scrolls and tomes as old as he was. Even though he was an oral historian, he loved reading and had a fantastic memory. He was often able to recall even the most obscure of facts.

  Zhihao ambled down the long aisles that were crammed with old books and random relics of history. Old wooden puppets, decorative door carvings, a jade dragon, bronze urns containing the remains of the long forgotten dead.

  Zhihao found Hu Xiaosheng where he expected to, mumbling to himself as he poured over an ancient document. Zhihao speculated that Hu Xiaosheng’s incessant mumbling, which he always did as he read, was part of the reason his memory was so good.

  “Greetings, Hu Xiaosheng,” Zhihao said with a respectful bow, using the honorific title for teacher.

  Hu Xiaosheng waved him off and barely looked up from his reading. “So, how did your meeting with the empress go?” he asked.

  “So direct,” Zhihao observed.

  “At my age, you don’t waste time,” Hu Xiaosheng said.

  “Indeed,” Zhihao replied. “It was…interesting, to be certain. Do you know anything about the emperor’s seal?”

  “You mean the one that was lost?”

  Zhihao’s jaw dropped, and not for the first time that day. He quickly rubbed his chin to try and compensate. He seemed to be the only person who didn’t know the seal had been missing.