Imperial Woman

by Pearl S. Buck

At this moment Lady Mei, peeping through brocaded curtains, saw her mistress lying there as dead and she ran in and knelt beside her.

  “Oh, Worshipful,” she moaned, “are you wounded? Did some one strike you?”

  She tried to lift her weeping mistress but she could not and so she ran to the door still open and met there Jung Lu, and behind him the eunuch Li Lien-ying, just now arrived.

  “Oh,” she cried and shrank back, her blood flooding upward from her heart into her cheeks. But Jung Lu did not see her. He carried something in his hands, a lump wrapped in yellow silk.

  He set it down when he saw the graceful figure lying on the stones, and he stooped and lifted the Empress in his arms and looked into her face.

  “I have brought the seal,” he said.

  She got to her feet then, and he stood tall and straight beside her, his countenance grave as was its habit nowadays. And he, avoiding her direct gaze, took up the seal again in both his hands, a solid rock of jade whereon was deeply carved the imperial symbol of the Son of Heaven. This was the seal of the Dragon Throne and had been for eighteen hundred years and more, designed by the command of Ch’in Shih-huang, then ruling.

  “I heard Su Shun,” he said, “while I stood at the door to guard you. I heard him cry out that the parchment bore no seal. It was a race between us. I went one way and sent your eunuch by another to hold him if he reached the death chamber first.”

  Here Li Lien-ying, always eager to claim a prize for himself, put in his own tale.

  “And I took a small eunuch with me, Venerable, and I crept into the death chamber through a vent, for you know the great gate is padlocked for fear of robbers in this wild country, and while the little eunuch watched, I went through head first and I smashed the wooden coffer with a vase of jade, and took out the seal. The little eunuch pulled me through again, even as I heard the Princes at the lock and forcing the key into the hole, and I wish that I could have stayed to see their faces when they saw the empty coffer!”

  “Now is no time for laughter,” Jung Lu said. “Empress, they will try to take your life, since they have not destroyed your power.”

  “Do not leave me,” she implored him.

  Tzu Hsi’s woman had all this time been standing at the door, her ear pressed against the panel. Suddenly she opened it. Prince Kung came in, his face pale, his robes wrapped about him for swiftness.

  “Venerable,” he cried, “the seal is gone! I went myself to the death chamber and ordered the guards to open the doors that I might go in. But the doors were open already at the order of Su Shun, and when I went in the coffer was empty.”

  He stopped. At this moment his eyes fell on the imperial seal covered with yellow silk. His jaw dropped, his dark eyes opened, the tip of his tongue touched his upper lip in a rare smile.

  “Now I see,” he said, “now I know why Su Shun says that such a woman as you must be killed or she will rule the world.”

  They looked at one another, Empress, Prince and eunuch, and they broke into triumphant mirth.

  The imperial seal was hidden underneath Tzu Hsi’s bed and the rose-red satin curtains overhung it, so that in the whole palace only she and her woman and her eunuch knew it was there.

  “Do not tell me where it is hidden,” Prince Kung had commanded. “I must be able to say I do not know.”

  With the imperial seal secure, she could do as she wished. Her fever left her and peace took the place of restlessness. She could and did ignore the ferment in the palace when it was known that the seal was gone, and none knew where. All guessed that she had taken it, and courtesy and obedience took the place of creeping impudence and growing arrogance. Her three enemies kept far from her, and well she knew that they were beside themselves, since they could not carry out their plot. Amid this confusion and consternation she went sweetly and at ease and her first deed was to send her eunuch to thank the Lady Yi for caring for her son, and to assure her that she would not put this trouble elsewhere, for she could care for him herself, since now, to her grief, her time was no more needed for the Emperor. So was restored to her the Heir.

  Her next deed was to go weeping to her cousin, there to sit beside her, and tell her how the Emperor had decreed that they two should be the Regents while the Heir was yet a child. “You and I, dear Cousin,” she said, “will now be sisters. Our lord willed us to be united for his sake, and I swear my loyalty and love to you so long as we both live.”

  She took Sakota’s little hand and smiled tenderly into the wistful face, and how could Sakota dare to make reply? She smiled back again, half gratefully, and with something like her old childish honesty she said:

  “To tell the truth, Cousin, I am glad to be friends.”

  “Sisters,” Tzu Hsi said.

  “Sisters then,” Sakota amended, “for I always feared that Su Shun. His eyes are fierce and shifty, and though he promised me very much, I never knew—”

  “Did he promise?” Tzu Hsi inquired too gently.

  Sakota flushed. “He said that while he was regent, I was always to be called the Empress Dowager.”

  “And I was to be put to death, was I not?” Tzu Hsi asked in the same quiet voice.

  “To that I never did agree,” Sakota said too quickly.

  Tzu Hsi maintained her usual courtesy. “I am sure you did not and now all can be forgot.”

  “Except—” here Sakota hesitated.

  “Except?” Tzu Hsi demanded.

  “Since you know much,” Sakota said, unwillingly, “you must know that it was their plot to kill all foreigners everywhere in our nation, and put to death, too, the brothers of the Emperor who would not take their side in the plot. The edicts for these deeds are written and ready for the seal.”

  “Indeed, and is it so?” Tzu Hsi murmured, smiling, but in her heart aghast. How many lives had she saved besides her own!

  She pressed Sakota’s hand between her hands. “Let us have no secrets from each other, Sister. And fear nothing, for these plotters do not have the imperial seal, and so these edicts which they planned are nothing. Only that one who has the ancient seal, which has come down to us from the Ancestor Ch’in Shih-huang himself, and upon which are carved the words ‘Lawfully Transmitted Authority,’ can claim succession to the Dragon Throne.”

  She looked so high and pure and calm that Sakota dared not put a question as to that seal and where it was now. She bowed her head and murmured in a faint voice, “Yes, Sister.” She put her kerchief to her lips and touched her eyelids, and said, “Alas—alas,” to signify her grief that her lord was dead, and upon this Tzu Hsi took her leave and all was amity.

  While the days passed until she must return to the capital she had only to await the further revelations of her enemies, and this she did with calm spirit, tinged with private mirth. But of such hidden mischief she showed nothing. Outwardly she was grave as a good widow should be and she wore white robes and put aside her jewels.

  Meanwhile Prince Kung returned to the capital, there to prepare a special truce with the enemy which would allow the return of the dead Emperor for his imperial funeral.

  “I have but one warning,” Prince Kung told her in parting. “Do not, Majesty, allow any meeting between yourself and your kinsman, the Commander of the Guard. Who can value his loyalty and his courage more than I do? Yet enemies will have their eyes upon you now to see if there be truth in old gossip. Instead, put your trust in the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai, who gives his service whole to you and to the Heir.”

  Tzu Hsi cast reproachful looks upon the Prince. “Do you think me stupid?”

  “Forgive me,” he said, and these were his parting words.

  Although she did not need it, yet his advice was good for her against temptation. For she was woman, and her heart was hot, and now that the Emperor was dead she did often in the night let her wild and secret thoughts go creeping through dark corridors and lonely halls and past empty rooms to that gate lodge where the Imperial Guard was stationed. There she found him whom she loved
and her thoughts circled about him like mourning doves, remembering him as he had been when they were children, he always tall and straight, inclined to stubbornness, it was true, never yielding unless it was his will to yield, stronger than she, however strong she was, handsome then as now, but male, and never delicate or womanish, as the poor Emperor had been. Against such thoughts and memories, it was well that she had Prince Kung’s warning, a shield to keep her from her own desire. She made her outer calm invincible, while within the fire burned.

  And indeed she could not indulge her heart. Her task was still not finished. She must not give comfort to her enemies, nor freedom to herself until the Throne was hers, to hold for her son. She must exert her every charm, her dignity and courtesy toward everyone, and so well she did this that all except her enemies were drawn to her, and especially the soldiers of the Imperial Guard to whom she granted gifts and kindness, without once seeming to show a difference between these men and their commander. To them, too, she sent her daily thanks for their protection of the imperial corpse.

  Meanwhile she took for her own ally the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai, and he was near her always as he had once been to the Emperor. From him she heard the troubles of her enemies, and how distracted the Three were, and their followers with them. For on the day after the imperial death they had sent out edict declaring themselves appointed Regents by the Emperor on his deathbed and she was forbidden any part in government. The next day, however, when they could not find the seal, they made haste to placate her, and sent out another edict proclaiming the Consorts both Empress Dowagers.

  “This, Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch told her, chortling and snickering, “is not so much that you are the mother of the new Emperor, but because you have won to your side the Manchu soldiers who guard this palace.”

  Tzu Hsi’s smooth cheeks dimpled. “Am I still to be killed?” she inquired too innocently.

  “Not until they are sure of their place in the capital.”

  They laughed and parted, he to make his report to Prince Kung by daily courier, and she to play her part of lovely woman. When she met by chance any of the Three, her courtesy was so perfect, her manner so indifferent to her danger, that Prince Yi at least could not believe she knew them still plotters.

  On the second day of the ninth moon month, truce having been made with the invaders, the Board of Regents declared that the cortêge of the dead Emperor must set forth on the journey homeward to the capital. Now it was the custom of the centuries that, when an emperor died away from his burial place, the Consorts must travel ahead, so that they could be ready to welcome the Imperial Dead to his final home. With due gravity and mourning, Tzu Hsi prepared herself and her son. The ancient custom gave Tzu Hsi her advantage and she hid her joy that this was so. For those Three, who were still her enemies, were by duty forced to follow with the imperial catafalque, and its great weight, borne by one hundred and twenty men, compelled their pace to such slowness that the journey to the capital must take ten days with resting places every fifteen miles. But in her simple mule cart the Empress Mother could reach the city in half the time, and there establish her place and power before Su Shun could prevent her.

  “Venerable, your enemies despair,” the Chief Eunuch told her the night before departure. “Therefore we must watch them at every step.”

  “I depend on your ears,” she said.

  “This is their plot,” the Chief Eunuch went on. “Instead of our loyal Manchu guards, Su Shun has ordered his own soldiers to accompany you, Venerable, on the plea that the Imperial Guards are needed for the dead Emperor. And even I have been commanded to attend the bier and with me your own eunuch, Li Lien-ying.”

  She cried out, “Alas—”

  The Chief Eunuch put up his huge hand.

  “I have worse to tell. Jung Lu is ordered to remain behind to guard this Jehol palace.”

  She wrung her hands together. “Forever?”

  The Chief Eunuch nodded his immense head. “He tells me so.”

  “What shall I do?” she asked in sharp distress. “This means I am to die. In some lonely mountain pass, who will hear me when I cry out to be saved?”

  “Venerable, be sure your kinsman has his own plan. He says you are to trust him. He will be near you.”

  With this faith only to uphold her, she set forth the next morning at dawn, her son’s cart in front, then hers and Sakota’s, and surrounded by the alien guard. Yet all saw her calm and unafraid, she spoke courteously to everyone, directing here and there and asking last, as though she all but forgot, that her large toilet case be put beneath her, lest she wish for kerchief or perfume. There in her toilet case was hidden the imperial seal, but none knew it save her faithful woman.

  When all was ready, she seated herself inside her curtains and so began the sad journey. She had longed to leave that somber palace and yet it seemed a shelter now that she did not know what lay ahead nor even where that night she must sleep. The summer drought had broken, and rain fell steadily as the day went on, a clean hard rain that soaked into the sandy soil and swelled the mountain streams and choked the narrow roads between the mountains. By nightfall, thus delayed, they were far from any resting place, and the rivers were so high that they were forced to stop in a certain gorge of Long Mountain, and make shelter as they could in the tents with which they traveled.

  Here in darkness while the bearers raised the tents, there was further mischief. The captain of the hostile guard declared that the Empress Dowager and the Heir must have their tent set well apart from all the rest, because their station was so high.

  “I will myself be your guard, Venerable,” he said. He stood before her in his soldier’s garb, a coarse and loud-mouthed churl his right hand on a sword that hung down to his heels while he made a show of courtesy.

  She kept her eyes down and so her eyes chanced to fall upon that right hand of his. Upon the thumb, and shining in the lantern light, she saw a ring of pure red jade. Such jade was not common, and its color caught in her mind.

  “I thank you,” she said calmly, “and when our journey is ended, I will reward you well.”

  “I do my duty, Venerable—I only do my duty.” Thus he boasted and bustled off.

  Night deepened. The winds and rain roared through the narrow gorge and at its bottom the river swelled high as it rushed on its way down the mountain. Rocks cracked from the mountainside and thundered past the tent where Tzu Hsi sat beside the child. His nurse slept and at last her own serving woman slept and the child went to sleep holding his mother’s hand. But Tzu Hsi could not sleep. She sat silent in her tent watching the candle gutter in the horn lantern, while she kept guard of the imperial seal, inside her toilet case. The seal was the treasure, and for it she might lose her life. She knew her danger. This was the hour for her enemy. Alone, with helpless women and the child, she was too far away to be heard if she cried out. And who would hear her? All day she had no sign to tell her where her kinsman was. She searched rocks and hillsides as she passed, but he was not hidden there. Nor had he mingled with the guards, disguised as common soldier. If she cried out to be saved, would he be near to hear? She could only wait while time passed, each moment separate torture.

  At midnight the guard beat the hour upon a brass drum to signify that all was well, and she pretended reproach for her own anxiety. Why should her enemies choose this place, this night, rather than another, to kill her? Would it not be easy to bribe a palace cook to put poison in her food, or an assassin eunuch to hide behind some door where she must pass? She toyed with each thought, coaxing herself free from fear, saying that it would indeed be annoyance to have the body of a dead empress to hide, and would not her subjects inquire what had befallen her, and could even her enemies take the risk of their anger?

  The next hour passed more quickly and now she only dreaded the dying of the candle. If she moved the child would wake, and he was sleeping sweetly, his hand folded into hers. Then she must call but softly, to rouse her woman to put a fresh cand
le in the lantern. She lifted her head so to call, and her gaze, which had been fixed upon the child’s sleeping face, at this moment caught the movement of the leather curtain of the tent. It was the wind, doubtless, or the rain pouring down, but still she could not move her eyes away nor did she call. And while she watched, a short sharp dagger cut the leather silently and now she saw a hand, a man’s hand, and upon the thumb it wore a red jade ring.

  Without a sound she snatched up the child and ran across the tent but in that same instant another hand reached out and seized the hand that held the dagger, and forced it back and the slit fell shut again. Ah, she knew well that saving hand! She stood and listened and heard men struggle and she saw the side of the tent tremble when they fell against it. She heard a moan, then silence.

  “Let that be an end to you,” these words she heard Jung Lu mutter.

  Such comfort now came flowing into her being that she was shaken to the heart. She put down the sleeping child and stole across the carpet to the door of the tent, and looked out into the stormy night. Jung Lu was there. He took three steps toward her and they gazed at each other full.

  “I knew that you would come,” she said.

  “I will not leave you,” he said.

  “Is the man dead?”

  “Dead. I have thrown the body down the gorge.”

  “Will they not know?”

  “Who can dare to speak his name when they see me in his place?”

  They stood, eyes meeting eyes, yet neither took the next step toward the other.

  “When I know what reward is great enough,” she said, “then I will give it to you.”

  “Because you live I am rewarded,” he replied.

  Again they stood until he said, uneasy, “Venerable, we must not linger. Everywhere we are surrounded by our enemies. You must retire.”

  “Are you alone?” she asked.

  “No, twenty of my own men are with me. I pressed ahead, my horse the swiftest! You have the seal?”

  “Here—”

  He stepped backward, turned and went into the darkness. She let the curtain fall and stole back to her bed. Now she could sleep. No more was she afraid. Outside her tent he stood on guard. She knew it, though the night hid him, and for the first time in many weeks she slept deeply and in peace.