Empress

by Shan Sa

  Outside the wind rattled through the bells hanging under the eaves, and their mournful tinkling made my pavilion seem even more dismal.

  What season is it? Am I still alive? Have I already stepped into eternity, and are my two lovers—lying huddled and motionless—two bodies sacrificed in my name, two souls imprisoned in my tomb?

  THE MOON WAXED and waned. The powerful infusions prescribed by my doctors quelled the burning fever in my body but upset my inner balance, and I was struck down with violent stomach cramps. Every morning the heir and my ministers would prostrate themselves before the gates of my palace, but I would send them away. I did not want them to see my ravaged face, my ashen complexion, or my withered body. I was not yet dead; my son would have to wait.

  Like a silk worm curled in its opaque cocoon, I was wrapped in my lovers’ tender care: Simplicity pushing back his crimson sleeves, revealing the plum-colored lining, to bathe me; Prosperity weeping as he wiped my bed sores with a green handkerchief; Simplicity’s cheeks glowing from the dancing flames as he stood over the oven boiling my medicinal infusion; Prosperity’s cherry red lips blowing on a bowl of hot soup with a coriander leaf floating in it; Simplicity’s fine fingers plucking the seven horizontal strings of a zither; Prosperity, a vertical silhouette in the doorway, playing his bamboo flute.

  My body slowly recovered its equilibrium, my appetite returned, and I was able to speak again. Now that I was out of danger, Prosperity and Simplicity went back to live in their residences outside the Forbidden City. The first night they did not sleep at the foot of my bed, I could not sleep. I was jealous, imagining Simplicity kissing a beautiful courtesan, and Prosperity, already drunk, letting himself be undressed.

  From my bed, I began dealing with affairs of State again. Reports from my judges accused the Zhang brothers of harboring dark plans to usurp power. They claimed that a physiognomist had identified the features of an emperor in Prosperity’s face and that, having been told this, the young man had commissioned a temple in the province of Ding, choosing the site to favor his imperial destiny.

  The prosecutors gathered by the door to my bedchamber, clamoring for the immediate arrest of the alleged culprit. Prosperity knelt beside my bed, so overwhelmed with tears that he could not speak. I eventually handed him over to them under the condition that the interrogation took place within the walls of my palace.

  Eunuchs shuttled backward and forward to keep me abreast of the trial. I soon learned that Prosperity had refused to answer any questions but, in a rush of courage, had started insulting the Great Ministers and magistrates. The overseer Song Jing was furious and called for his instruments of torture.

  Gentleness was sent immediately to announce my imperial clemency, and Prosperity was carried back by a eunuch, bathed in his own blood. This boy who cried so easily did not shed one tear; he prostrated himself to thank me and passed out. My lovers took up residence in my palace and, for fear of being arrested or assassinated, they no longer left that closed world. I had succeeded in keeping them by my side.

  The pains and ills vanished from my body one after another. The Zhang brothers’ attentions had been more effective that any medicine. I started getting out of bed and forced myself to take a few steps. The year was drawing to a close; as one cycle ended, hope for a new beginning dawned. From within my palace, I granted the world the Great Imperial Remission: With the exception of rebel leaders, everyone who had been condemned for participating in conspiracies against my authority was pardoned. I dictated a proclamation changing the Era of Long Peace into the Era of the Divine Dragon. May the dragon’s squally breath blazing to the very skies give me the strength to defy death!

  In the south, spring had already set light to the River Long. Another moon phase and it would reach the Sacred Capital: The River Luo would thaw, the sun would disperse the clouds. I would reach that miraculous pinnacle of longevity: My eightieth birthday would be a triumphant celebration. The peonies in the Imperial Park would bloom once more, and my eunuch gardeners would bring me new varieties—green, mauve, black, pearly, gold….

  I would live.

  THE SNOW DANCED and swirled, cedar-wood crackled in bronze braziers. I only had to cough for my serving women to light their candles hastily and bring me hot tea. In that first year of the Era of the Divine Dragon, on the twenty-second day of the first moon, I was happy to wake. I looked up at the ceiling and down the scarlet pillars, and my eyes came to rest on a huge branch of plum blossom that Prosperity had brought me. I urged my hairdresser and makeup women to hurry and finish their torture. Then I put on a saffron-colored tunic with a dark, inky lining, and a purple brocade coat lined with crimson. I lay on my bed and made sure that one end of my sash trailed along the floor; it was painted with mountains in winter and frozen rivers, birds flying over naked trees, a deep cave where the goddesses of water played a game of go.

  A eunuch prostrated himself at the door, and I heard him informing one of my Court ladies that Prosperity and Simplicity had just left their pavilions and were heading for mine. I pictured my lovers’ progress: They were coming down the steps freshly swept by their serving women; they were stepping onto a little path, a covered gallery where branches laden with snow were like beams of crystal and rafters of diamonds. Prosperity was wearing a light red coat lined with sable and was followed by a page carrying an umbrella of pine-colored oiled cloth. Simplicity was walking behind his younger brother, wrapped in a cape of white damask woven with silver thread and lined with silver fox fur, and on his head he had only his white tiger-skin hat pulled down over his ears. His wide sleeves swished through the snowflakes making them flutter nervously about him before falling into his footprints in the snow.

  That morning, as I looked in the mirror, I saw a hint of pink had returned to my cheeks. My body was alive with new energy. I felt like braving the cold to scatter corn for the sparrows and squirrels. It would be a long day: I was expecting my ministers who would be discussing the construction of a new road to facilitate deliveries of supplies to the Capital.

  Gentleness was late. Had she caught a cold? I sent a serving woman for news of her. Simplicity and Prosperity had still not arrived. Had they stopped off somewhere? I asked a governess to tell them to hurry.

  She had only opened the door a fraction when I saw the points and crests of helmets looming forward through flurries of snow. Men in breastplates had climbed the steps and pushed past the serving women who tried to stop their intrusion. They came into my room and prostrated themselves before my bed with a clattering of weapons.

  The powerful smell of leather and metal damp with snow swept over me. I stared at them, wide-eyed. There was a long silence.

  “What’s going on?” I eventually managed to say, “Is there a revolt in the Palace?”

  Great Chancellor Zhang Jian Zhi stepped forward. He was a scholarly man in his seventies, and he had put his battledress over his Court robes. His white beard, which he usually combed so carefully, was now a knotted mass. The usual gentleness and humility in his face had vanished, and his glittering eyes revealed all the cruelty and determination of someone who has just committed a crime. He unclenched his jaw, “The Zhang brothers held Your Majesty hostage a long time. The enemies of the Empire have now been eliminated. Your Majesty is out of danger…”

  My head swam. The inevitable had happened: Simplicity and Prosperity should not have lived; it was written in the book of their destiny. I had never known why I loved them, and I now realized that their disturbing beauty had been sculpted by death. Eight years had passed, and every exquisite day spent in their company had been a petal they tore from their own flesh and laid on my altar.

  A pain wrenched my chest, but I controlled my trembling. I looked slowly over those ashen faces and picked out Li Zhan, Lieutenant General of the Guard of the Right.

  “I have heaped honors and wealth on you and your father,” I told him: “Why are you here today?”

  He kept his eyes lowered, stayed silent and impassive.


  Then I turned to Great Secretary Cui Yuan Wei, “While others owe their promotion to ministerial recommendations, you alone have been trained under my supervision throughout your career. What are you doing here? Are you not ashamed of what you have done?”

  He backed away on his knees and prostrated himself, keeping his head to the floor.

  “Future, there is no point in hiding. I can see that you are here too, to ‘reassure’ me. Now that the usurpers are dead, you may go back to your palace!”

  He paled, struck his head against the ground, and headed for the door. The Magistrate Huan Yan Fan caught hold of his sleeve and cried, “Majesty, the Supreme Son must not return to his palace! Long ago the Emperor Lordly Ancestor entrusted his education to you, but he is a grown man now. It is the wish of the heavens and of your people that you should hand over power to him now!”

  “Who is so insolent that he speaks for the imperial heir?” I asked. “Remove him!”

  Future tore himself from his servant’s grasp and fled.

  “Majesty,” said Great Minister Zhang Jian Zhi, prostrating himself again, “the Supreme Son is ready to reign. Please trust in him!”

  “The Supreme Son has left. Why are you still here?” I said, turning my back to them. Without the Heir, the conspirators were quickly discouraged and withdrew one by one. I could hear Court ladies weeping, and the serving women I had sent to find Simplicity’s and Prosperity’s bodies returned: The entrance to my pavilion was guarded by soldiers and no one could leave. I learned that Gentleness would not be coming—it was she who had opened the door of my palace to the insurgents.

  Filled with extraordinary energy, I rose to my feet. The Sacred Emperor who held the Celestial Mandate and the Golden Wheel would open every closed door. She would find her lovers’ bodies and bury them with her own hands.

  As I stepped out of my palace, the North Wind pierced right through me. I who had outwitted every plot, how had I not foreseen this one? Had I been reduced to this? I felt overwhelmingly faint and coughed until I spat blood. The soldiers’ gleaming lances became stars scattered across the night sky.

  Ministers slash the still-twitching bodies. Soldiers throw the corpses onto a carriage and abandon them by a river. Snow falls, clouds of furious butterflies. Snow brushes over the black peonies of gaping wounds. Snow melts into open eyes, empty holes drinking in the sky. Crows spread their wings and hop down from the trees, cawing. Lean wolves and jackals come out of the woods, bellies brushing through the powdery snow. Pointed beaks lacerate those purple faces, and bloodied jaws delve through the exposed entrails. A starving fox circles round the carcasses then lunges, snatching Prosperity’s sexual organ before fleeing across the plain.

  I was woken by the sound of my soul screaming.

  In that overheated room with its glowing braziers, the feeble crying of my serving women was punctuated only by my own rasping breath. A fever burned in my chest but my limbs were icy cold. The pain spreading through my body only aggravated my unbearable suffering. With the shutters closed and curtains lowered, I did not know whether it was day or night. The flames projected shadows on the walls, and I thought I could see Prosperity’s silhouette among them. It was all a nightmare! The Zhang brothers would wake me from this anguished sleep, slipping under the covers with me. With their cool skin against mine, we would wait and see dawn break: The windows would open and the light would wash away the painful memories.

  A man started speaking. Startled, I turned toward him and recognized Great Chancellor Zhang Jian Zhi kneeling beside my bed. His words dug deep into my ears. His very presence reminded me there had been a massacre. It was all over: Simplicity and Prosperity were dead!

  The wicked traitor tried in vain to justify his actions and to persuade me to sign a decree of abdication. His droning monologue was maddening; I did not even know how long he had been there, worrying at me. Seeing that I remained silent and unmoved, he withdrew, and my nephew Spirit took over trying to make me understand how serious the situation was. Even he had betrayed me!

  Eventually my daughter Moon appeared. She talked about my health and how I needed to rest. She said that an empire could not survive without a master, and that the time had come to hand over the reins of power. Her words made perfect sense; they reminded me of Mother: Just like her, my daughter had never understood me.

  I interrupted her explanations: I would sign my abdication if she gave the Zhang brothers a decent burial in a monastery on Mount Mang.

  “I have carried this crown to save the Palace from discord and to delay the fall of the world. Ambitious men have urged your brother on, and he is now claiming it as his. I shall give it to him!”

  Moon left with the document on which I had put my seal and my thumbprint. The silence rekindled my pain. I closed my eyes and could picture a troop of soldiers marching; I could hear the clatter of their weapons, their officers shouting, their feet stamping. Simplicity and Prosperity are running away through the snow. Simplicity’s face is suddenly twisted, his eyes roll back; he totters and falls. Prosperity carries on running toward my pavilion. He has lost his shoes, he trips over the bodies of serving women, crying “Majesty, help me!” An arrow carves through the air and strikes him in the middle of his forehead. His body freezes, his pupils dilate. He opens his mouth to give a silent wail and falls to his knees. A bright, frothy trickle of blood runs down between his eyes and over his nose. His face becomes so transparent that I read his last interrupted thought, his shattered poetry and evaporating breath.

  Simplicity and Prosperity were dead. The last music in my life had fallen silent. What did anything else matter to me?

  FUTURE ASCENDED TO the throne and gave me the title of August Emperor of Celestial Law. To distance me from my followers, the Court ousted me from the Forbidden City and set me up in a summer palace on the southern bank of the River Luo, to the west of the city. Every five days, the New Empress and Princess Moon would come to my door for news of my health, accompanied by Gentleness who now worked for my son and had been raised to the rank of Delicate Concubine. Every ten days, Future and his high dignitaries would raise an imperial cortège, and he would come to offer me his respectful salutation. The Court longed for me to die. All this artificial commotion was just play acting, to fool the people and the history books.

  Despite the orders sent out to cut me off from the world, information filtered through those high, well-guarded walls. The Zhang brothers’ clan had been decimated. Officials and artists known to be their friends had been beheaded. There were countless heads displayed outside the Southern Gate of the Forbidden City, exposed to the abuse of passersby. The Empress, who wanted to start everything afresh, had driven out three thousand palace servants and Court ladies.

  The activities of the Forbidden City no longer affected me. The anguish of my grief had stripped me of my vanity as if casting off unnecessary garbs. I was reduced to skin and bone, but I would not succumb. My will to triumph had come back with new vigor. As I lay on my bed, drawing each painful breath through my mouth, I decided to stop shedding tears over my fate and to accept the will of Heaven with my eyes open.

  Future brought an end to the Zhou Dynasty I had inaugurated, closed the Sacred Temple of Ten Thousand Elements and expelled my ancestors from the Eternal Temple. The Empire bore the name Tang once more. The ministries went back to their former names, and banners and official tunics returned to the colors of old. The Court abolished the writing I had invented, and Luoyang was demoted, conceding its precedence as Capital to Long Peace. The world I had built was annihilated and I barely suffered from this appalling waste. The children I brought into the world, the ministers I trained and Gentleness who I set free had all betrayed me. But I was not haunted by the agonies of betrayal. I had not followed prosecutor Lai Jun Chen’s advice and had not exterminated my two families. I had not had Gentleness killed when told of her secret liaison with the woman who had become Empress. My indulgence was not a mistake, it was a renouncement. Just
as beauty begins to fade the moment it blossoms, so I had already accepted that my Zhou Dynasty was the briefest episode in the great dream of History.

  Yesterday Master of the World, today a humiliated prisoner, captive in my own paralyzed body, confronting the final trial of my existence. I did not loathe Zhang Jian Zhi and his followers who had snatched power from a sovereign weakened by old age. I forgave the heir his cowardice, taking the crown from his dying mother. I understood the choices my nephews had made as they struggled to stay on top of the churning waves. All those people had to carry on with their fears and efforts, and I no longer needed a mirror or a seal. I had freed myself from all that posturing; I was relieved of my burden.

  Spring came once more. Prosperity and Simplicity would not see the peonies flower and the swallows return. My heart was at peace. The Court hoped that I would die but I was breathing. Defying illness, opening my eyes, throwing myself into life every morning were my duties. I had to finish writing in my mind the book of my life.

  The frustration of an heir who had waited too long turned into the dissipation of an emperor too eager to enjoy his power. Future was permanently drunk, reeling from one party to another. Zhang Jian Zhi and Spirit vied for power in the Outer Court, and in the Inner Court the Empress Wei found a formidable rival in Moon, appointed by her brother as the Great Imperial Protector. Both women interfered with political decisions and fought to influence the weak sovereign.