Empress

THIRTEEN

Why does the body shrivel and dry when the soul, this fathomless voice, still longs to flourish? Why did anyone invent mirrors to glorify and assassinate women? Why should I, Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty, Master of the World, a Divinity on Earth, be obsessed with my ephemeral form? And why should I, who knew celestial beauty, still strive so desperately to look after my earthly face? Why did I choose this torture when I aspired to deliverance?

I asked to be woken when it was still dark. While the Forbidden City slept, my eunuch hairdresser would subject me to his excruciating routine: He positioned a stag’s horn wrapped in hair on the top of my head, then he took my own hair, one strand at a time, and drew it into that gleaming black topknot. The horn was a symbol of virility and was meant to impart its tonic properties to me. My scalp was pulled so tight that it smoothed my forehead, temples and cheeks. Once this impression had been successfully created, my makeup women would apply four layers of unguents and powder to my face before drawing in new features for me. A wide strip of fabric wrapped round my waist supported my back, which ached from the weight of the topknot and the ornamentations on it. I had stiff collars on my tunics to hide my wrinkled neck and my slumped bosom, and long sleeves to cover my liver-spotted hands with their gnarled, reddened joints. The Court marveled at my eternal youth, and I accepted their praise with a bitter smile.

How could I dupe myself? I was worn down by frequent intestinal complaints. My strength was slipping away like water from a cupped hand. I walked more slowly, grew short of breath more easily, forgot people’s names or important dates, and Gentleness acted as my memory. I had difficulty heaving myself onto my charger. My doctors first forbade me from cantering, then from riding altogether. I would suddenly be gripped by violent rages and then would be despondent for days on end. Without a horse, I had no energy or enthusiasm. I was no longer myself.

On some days, then, as dusk fell over the Imperial Park, I would ask to be taken to the top of a hill, and I would sit out on the terrace of a pavilion. On a sign from me my eunuchs would raise flags, and Earth would tremble as hundreds of horses surged out of the forest and stampeded around a track at the foot of the hill. I watched, fascinated, their every muscle was tense, their manes streamed in the wind. My most able young horsewomen would stand on their saddles and perform acrobatic displays. Their supple movements, so perfectly attuned to the rhythm of the gallop, lifted me out of my motionless body. On the distant horizon, night closed in like a rising tide, eating away at my life a little at a time, the races and the battles, the turmoil and the rage.

My friends and mistresses had disappeared! Every month the government presented me with a list of the dead, and I recognized the names of exiled enemies, retired servants, poets, and monks. They had all closed their doors, leaving me in a world where-sunbeam by sunbeam-their light was dimming.

The hillside would succumb to the darkness and my servants would light lanterns and braziers. Somewhere musicians played. My world had shrunk to the confines of that tiny pavilion. Candles lit the faces in the frescoes that would line my tomb: Gentleness, seen in profile with her pensive brow, holding a writing case in her hand. Behind her, Court ladies and serving women all painted according to traditional codes, perfectly proportioned and with a melancholy beauty. In the background, little eunuchs in brown tunics and black lacquered linen caps merged into the balustrades. The moon, pinned close to a window, lit various minutely drawn objects: an incense-burner, a bonsai tree, a long-handled round fan, a curly-coated puppy, a bowl, a teapot. The group of women looked like a great cluster of peonies, standing facing Simplicity in Tatar dress with tight sleeves. They did not look at each other, but into space, at absence, at the dead woman. In the distance Prosperity’s graceful silhouette was outlined beneath a clump of bamboo, drawing serene notes from his flute.

ONE NIGHT THE town of Long Peace appeared to me in a dream. The gates and archers’ towers of its Forbidden City loomed through golden clouds. Flocks of birds circled over its crimson walls. Its avenues filled with cherry and wild orange blossom had the outdated charm of an abandoned concubine. Overcome by a pain I could not name, I woke.

All of Luoyang trembled and the order was given: My Court and dignitaries packed up the furniture, the tableware, and the animals. The Southern Gate opened, and the city reverberated to horses’ whinnying and my soldiers’ rhythmic marching. I sat in my carriage of gold, led by two hundred coachmen, and hurried toward the past. The Emperor of China was traveling to Heavenlight. I was fleeing Luoyang, where the sun was about to set, in order to reach the sunrise in Long Peace.

The smell of meadows seeped through the pearl-edged brocade door hangings. Soon my sleep was haunted by the breath of the Yellow Earth and the slow music of its rivers. Memories of a former life came back to me in snatches: I was in a carriage heading for Long Peace, huddled in my seat weeping, my stomach knotted with fear. I missed Mother and Little Sister. Why did I have to grow up?

I sat up with a start, thinking I could hear thunder. Thousands of voices were chanting, “Ten thousand years to the Sacred Emperor, ten thousand years to the Sacred Emperor, millions of years of health and happiness to the Sacred Emperor of the Celestial Mandate and the Golden Wheel!” Through the window of my carriage, I could see endless horsemen with stirrups of gold and silver, countless crimson banners fluttering in the wind and bristling arms plying forward. Prosperity was riding close by and he called out, “Long Peace is not far now! I can see the crenellated ramparts.” He broke off to draw level with me again. “Majesty,” he went on, “the people have come out of the city to greet you. Men, women, children, the elderly, all prostrated along the way with their foreheads in the dust.” A moment later he added, “Majesty, the whole city is at your feet. The people are weeping with joy and asking for your blessing. Majesty, here is the avenue of the Scarlet Bird. Ah, Majesty, the Imperial City!”

My eyes filled with tears. I suddenly remembered a smell from the past, familiar figures forgotten for half a century. Their high foreheads, their distant eyes, their slow, precise footsteps: serving women and governesses from the Palace who had come to greet the new Talented One.

I was so young then and I am now so old!

The door hangings were drawn apart. Great ministers prostrated themselves and asked me to alight. I decreed the Great Remission and the beginning of a new era, the Era of Long Peace, in homage to the city that had been awaiting my return for twenty years. I made offerings and ceremony of prayers to my august parents, to the Emperor Lordly Forebear, the Emperor Eternal Ancestor, and to my husband, the Emperor Lordly Ancestor. Leaning on my cane, I walked slowly through the Forbidden City, followed by Gentleness, Simplicity, and Prosperity. I could see my sister sitting before her bronze mirror with her gold flasks of perfume. I stroked the yellowed scrolls of silk on which the Delicate Concubine Xu had written her poems. I stood in quiet contemplation in the pavilion where the Gracious Wife had lain naked in the scarlet glow of the setting sun. I envied all these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.

After the fevered excitement of the first months, I was overwhelmed with exhaustion and my hands started to shake violently. My calligraphy, always a source of such pride, became tortured scribbling. I sometimes tripped when there was nothing in my way. I saw a succession of doctors and was deluged with their diagnoses: unhinged winds, warring hot and cold elements, internal disorders. Some prescribed herb teas, baths, ointments, whereas others would have me bled, counsel acupuncture, and breathing exercises. The morning salutation was a challenge that I renewed daily. I should get out of bed, walk, get into a carriage, and endure the difficult journey to the Outer Court.

But I myself had found the best remedy against old age: never stop working, continue to invent. Amid the affairs of state and celebrations, I forgot the trembling of my body. I set up the military Imperial Competition and I myself corrected the papers on strategy and arbitrated the tournaments. I received ambassadors from Japan who, after a thirty-three-year hiatus, had crossed the boiling seas once more to prostrate themselves before the sovereign of the Celestial Empire. I sent my son Miracle to command my forces in war against the Tatars who had rebelled once again in the northwest. I arranged a marriage between a princess and a Tibetan king. When the King of Sinra died, I quickly sent an emissary to help his younger brother take the throne. The judicial mistakes made in the days of the torturer-prosecutors were corrected and the condemned rehabilitated. I reclassified the books in the Imperial Library. My nephew Spirit oversaw a hundred archivists and scholars compiling the annals of the overthrown Tang Dynasty.

TWO YEARS HAD passed since I left Luoyang when a terrible winter cold confined me to bed. It took me longer than usual to recover; I had to suspend the morning salutation for a month. Even when I was well again, I could no longer walk without help. I was horrified by this deterioration, convinced that I had fallen prey to the evil spirits of my rivals. Fifty years after their death, the Empress Wang and the Splendid Wife had surged suddenly in my dreams, accusing me of having ordered the murder of my own daughter. I hastily fled Long Peace. Luoyang welcomed me with acclamation and tears.

THE COURT WAS like a merciless mirror, reflecting my decline: The Supreme Son grew more stooped every day-so much waiting for the crown had turned him into an old man. Moon was nearly forty, and she was a grandmother herself. The kings, my nephews, who were still involved in endless intriguing, had to dye the hair black at their temples, and their foreheads were ravaged with creases. The great voice among my ministers had fallen silent: The chancellor Di Ren Jie had died. The government had lost its soul and I my right hand man.

The Empire continued to flourish, although I had less energy to bear the weight of prosperity. My judgment had slowed, and it took me twice as long to study a dossier. I was no longer a wizard of solutions. I secretly longed to retire, leaving Luoyang with my lovers. I dreamed of spending my last days in the Palace of Solar Breath far away from earthly matters: In the spring, there would be the cruise along the River of Rocks; in the summer, open-air concerts; in the autumn, poetry competitions would be washed down with chrysanthemum wine; in winter, my palace would be surrounded by snow, and puppets would act out plays that I had written.

I accepted when the Court offered the Zhang brothers the title of Great Lord, but refused my children’s hypocritical suggestion that they be raised to the rank of kings. Favorites should be kept far from the circle of power. But my rigorous attitude failed to reassure my anxious ministers. Some leagued against the two brothers and queued before me, trying to convince me of their ambition. I took note and made no comment. I left my government to its worrying. I left my sons, daughter, and nephews to their hateful jealousy. I left my favorites to pursue their pleasures in torment. My loneliness was bleaker than ever. Paralyzed by fear and despair, I watched my eightieth birthday draw nearer and nearer.

How could I abandon my empire, my lovers, and my descendants? How could I leave Luoyang, its peonies, canals, and bewitching loveliness? How could I exchange the comfort of my bed for a coffin, my sumptuous palace for an underground chamber? How could I close my eyes, stop hearing, or let myself forget? How could I stop breathing, stop existing? What would my next life be? Would I be a beggar having been a sovereign? Would I change into a bird to fly away from the very pinnacle of humanity or into a stone thrown down from the summit having fulfilled my destiny?

I called exorcists to my palace. Monks in monasteries recited purifying sutras and prayers in my name. I offered up my sacred veins to leeches, my divine scalp to the acupuncturists’ silver needles. I braved snakebites and suffered in hot mud and iced baths. There were brief periods of improvement, occasional miracles, but evil continued to make its progress through my body. I could no longer walk; two sturdy serving women carried me in a litter. My words became confused and Gentleness served as my interpreter. The most simple tasks and gestures became personal battles. Something stronger than my own will was triumphing over me. The gods punish men in their arrogance and pride. Little Phoenix, so indolent and offhand, had ended his days in a morass of pain. I who had held the reins of my destiny so firmly, I who had commanded the greatest Empire beneath the skies, was robbed of authority over my own flesh.

Every day I lost a little more control over myself. My deterioration bewildered the high-ranking dignitaries so accustomed to my energetic authority. There was talk of the Supreme Son and his wife growing impatient, of my nephews adjusting their strategies, of more and more courtiers abandoning Simplicity and Prosperity to join the heir’s camp. Terrified by the slander, my favorites sought more privilege and fortune to insure their future.

The internal conflicts that had been kept secret burst out into the open one day. The prosecutors from the Lodge of Purification opened the hostilities by accusing Prosperity’s and Simplicity’s three brothers of corruption. My lovers rested their heads on my pillow, sobbing, and pleading their family’s innocence. The ensuing investigation attracted further complaints: more and more people came forward as witnesses with various forms of proof. I was unable to act against the rulings I myself had imposed and was forced to exile the guilty parties to distant provinces. But I also banished two of my eminent ministers who had lead the hostilities against Prosperity and Simplicity. These judges were insisting-on the grounds that the law saw all close relations of condemned men as guilty of a comparable crime-that my favorites be stripped of their positions and their nobility. I had to be very wily to extricate myself from the situation. Under my instructions, Great Minister Yang Si Jian stood up indignantly, exclaiming, “The Lords Zhang have helped ensure the Emperor’s longevity, and for this the Empire is deeply indebted to them. They are, therefore, protected from crimes committed by their relations.”

A few months later, the prosecutors made the charges again, issuing a writ against Prosperity for annexing good farmland so that he could extend his residence. Once again I had to negotiate with the government, and the young man was punished with a fine.

Prosperity lay weeping in the gynaeceum, tears rolling down his lovely face, transparent droplets, morning dew on a pale peony. When he was tormented and distressed, he was even more intoxicatingly beautiful. I secretly relished his charms as he wept, and I forgot to scold him for his lack of judgment. I promised I would remove his enemies from power-just to see him smile.

The world did not know that Prosperity’s idleness meant as little to me as the government’s obsessive tendency to see him as a challenge to the Supreme Son. I wanted to be done with it, and I was afraid of dying. I was making preparations for my final hour, and all the while hoping for another outcome. I concentrated what little strength I had left on fighting the terror every night before I fell asleep. One day I should never awake.

THE TEMPERATURE HAD plummeted in Luoyang, and autumn rains had turned to winter snow. The sky never cleared and was heavy as a sheet of iron. The roads became impassable and travel along the rivers had been stopped. Cut off from the world, the Capital began to deplete its reserves. I ordered for the imperial grain stores to be opened to save the poor, and for blankets to be handed out to vagrants.

The city was struck by an epidemic. Despite its deep ditches, high crimson walls and closed gates, the plague penetrated the Inner City. Nothing could hold it back, neither the medicinal herbs I had burned, nor their thick smoke that hung in every room, nor the monks’ prayers and conjurations against the spirits spreading this sickness. Along with many of my officials, I succumbed to a violent fever. I lay in bed in the Pavilion of Gathered Immortals and lost all notion of time.

Shadows danced against the walls; sobbing and murmuring came to me as distant waves. I was wandering through the dark, murky corridors of a world with only two seasons: winter, which turned me to ice, and summer, which grilled me in the sun. All of a sudden I stepped over the horizon and saw a lilac-colored sky dotted with mysterious twinkling. A moment later I realized I was seeing my embroidered velvet bed-hangings. I summoned my strength to turn my head to one side. In the lamplight I saw Simplicity and Prosperity sleeping on the bare floor, huddled together like two lost, frightened children. My heart beat with fierce emotion and images came back to me: I remembered Prosperity soothing my burning brow with ice-cold cloths, and Simplicity cradling me in his arms to feed me. I looked at their beautiful, pale faces and thought of their future, which was no longer a future. A son’s Court would take revenge on his mother’s favorites. All the pomp and wealth of the present would be their downfall. In the glory they enjoyed today was inscribed the punishment they would suffer tomorrow.

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 cortege, 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.

Officials were already secretly regretting the end of my reign. Messages from them reached me, stitched into belts worn by my eunuchs. Too late! My body was still in this world, but my spirit had already left. One night, Spirit was let into my bedchamber. He threw himself at the foot of my bed and shed copious tears. This wily nephew had changed his tune: He promised to free me and to avenge Simplicity’s and Prosperity’s deaths. He tried in vain to obtain my signature authorizing him to overthrow Future. I watched him pityingly: I refused to give my dying name to another massacre. My lovers’ assassination would not be avenged; the Zhou dynasty would die with me. No more blood would flow in my lifetime. The Empire would not descend into chaos.

The news and messages dried up: My faithful eunuchs had in turn been driven out of the Palace, and I was now watched over by cold, aloof women. I was seen by a succession of imperial doctors. They too were new faces and, instead of curing me, their prescriptions weakened me.

From then on I refused every remedy, and the Court had to accept that their revelries must wait a little longer: So long as I was alive, I acted as a stern conscience, a pitiless mirror for them. My serving women no longer helped me change position; they had probably been given orders to let my flesh rot. Suppurating wounds gnawed at me day and night. My hair and nails kept on growing. The women filled my room with budding flowers and baskets of fruit to smother the fetid smell of their crime. The Emperor and his Court had stopped their salutations; Moon and Gentleness no longer came to see me. They wanted to kill me by forgetting me.

A rainstorm battered the peach blossom, and summer was upon us. A mysterious vitality within me still refused to capitulate. My pavilion was full of life: Simplicity and Prosperity, dressed in white lilac tunics and gazing at me dreamily, filled the air with their exquisite perfume; Mother leaned on her cane and described the marvels of the Pure World of Buddha; Little Phoenix rushed in and out, my celestial husband was always eager to set off on some journey. Ships with their sails ballooning in the wind navigated across my face and sailed off onto the ocean.

Then hundreds, thousands of horses made the floorboards thrum, galloping across my room with their hectic manes flying.

My ecstatic smile converted the women watching over me. They saw a golden light radiating from my body, and they prostrated themselves at my feet, venerating me feverishly. When they had washed me, fed me, and arranged my hair, I had my bed moved over to a window. Robins, magpies, crested parrots, and peacocks pecked at the garden where the irises had wilted and the orchids were shyly opening their buds. A wide path snaked through thickets of bamboo, its paving stones untouched by visitors’ feet for many months and covered in damp moss. I watched the lotus flowers blooming in the middle of a pond, aware I was seeing them flower for the last time.

I bid good-bye to the autumn as it left forever, then winter held me in its grip. Snow fell from the sky. I remembered the same time the previous year, watching Simplicity and Prosperity throwing snowballs at my court ladies. Their laughter and shouts still echoed but their silhouettes had already blended into the withered trees. Simplicity and Prosperity were gone. I did not know what had happened to my women. The silent falling of those white flowers had strung a net between the earth and the sky, where the living frolicked and played.

In the first year of the Era of the Divine Dragon, on the night of the twenty-fifth day of the eleventh moon, the snow stopped. Prosperity appeared beside my bed. He prostrated himself and then played his bamboo flute. Pearls of crystal streamed around me. The moon turned into a silvery river carrying me off in its glittering currents. I saw jade palaces in the skies, misty plains, and fields of light!

The following morning I asked for my topknot and makeup to be done as soon as the sun was up. Wearing my most beautiful jewels and dressed in a flame-colored tunic over a dazzling white gown, I dictated the epitaph that should be engraved on my funeral stela to be erected beside my husband’s.

I would reveal the beauty of the Zhou dynasty to any man who stopped before my tomb. He would learn of its prosperous towns, swift horses, deep forests, and magical rivers. He would admire the way the arts flourished and would praise the glory of its poetry. I described my pride in adoring the gods, venerating the ancestors, subduing men’s struggles, sanctifying Heaven, and reigning in the Temple of Clarity. I drew a portrait of myself as a humble sovereign, bowing to the will of one true God, the source of all divinities. The end would be the beginning; the ephemeral would become the infinite. My trials over, I would return to the skies.

At dawn the next day, the silence in my bedchamber was broken by the sound of horns and drums. Other sounds-horses whinnying and men shouting-were carried to me on the wind: Future and his Court were beating through the imperial forest.

Banners cracked in the wind. Leopards and hunting dogs ran ahead of the horses as stags fled through the undergrowth. Branches drew closer, whipping the intruders’ faces, then parted. Snow heaped on the tops of trees collapsed and fell in a fine powder. Breathing more labored. Heart beating, fit to burst. Suddenly, there was a lake, a block of ice, a mirror on eternity.

In a single leap, my soul broke away from my body and launched itself into the sky.

THE SERVING WOMEN beat their breasts and wept, and a posse of soldiers galloped off to inform the sovereign. Bronze bells were sounded, and prayers went up from every monastery. Stunned and saddened, weaving women abandoned their looms, merchants their ledgers, and peasants their toils. The people tore their clothes, untied their topknots, and wailed lamentations. Music, laughter, and bright colors vanished from Chinese soil overnight. Horses were stripped of their ornate saddles; men wrapped themselves in hemp tunics held with belts of woven straw. Galley warships raised white sails, and mourning flags flew over every rampart.

The Court altered my will. In keeping with “my last wish,” the sovereign withdrew the title of emperor and gave me the posthumous title of August Empress of Celestial Law. After lengthy debate, Zhang Jian Zhi and his adherents gave in to officials determined to respect my wish to return to Long Peace and be interred with my husband.

The Palace undertook the twenty-seven funeral ceremonies: calling upon my soul, bathing, clothing, making offerings, the invocation, and laying me in my coffin. Meanwhile, officers from the Department of Funerals went to Mount Liang and carried out ritual libations to appease my husband’s spirit before opening up the passage to his burial chamber. The frescoes were repainted, false chambers and the true burial chamber were redecorated, and tri-colored ceramic sculptures representing animals, slaves, and houses embellished the underground corridors.

The work was finished by the time spring came round again. The imperial soothsayers chose the day of the fifth full moon for my departure: my coffin, an interlocking set of four sarcophaguses in lacquered wood, silver, gold, and jade, and hundreds of vases, pots, and jugs filled with ice were all arranged on a carriage drawn by one thousand soldiers. With no jewelry, makeup, or fine brocade, wearing simple white linen, the sovereign, kings, princesses, and dignitaries climbed into their carriages and followed my body as it made its slow progress with majestic dignity.

The road was covered in yellow sand, and it snaked across the Central Plain. The sun rose. The moon set. People came from the four corners of the Empire to lay funeral offerings made of paper and gold leaf: palaces, horses, servants, money, all the way to Long Peace. In the evening, after I had passed, they set light to these gifts, turning them into thousands of pillars of smoke reaching for the stars.

Mount Liang, my tomb, loomed up on the horizon. Two hillocks had been built at the mouth of the tomb with two archers’ towers to drive away demons. The gates of the Sacred City opened to reveal its palaces, temples, and pagodas. The stone statues of horses, griffons, ministers, and lions passed beside me as my hearse rumbled up the Imperial Way. Two huge stelas stood out against the sky. One had shimmering inscriptions filled with powdered gold: my eulogy for my husband’s reign. The other was smooth as a mirror, waiting for my words intended for men of the future.

The sun withdrew from the horizon. The sky shrank and then vanished. There in the mouth of the mountain, the wind from the shades flattened the torch flames. In the frescoes along the walls, the great imperial parade marched toward the light, and I descended into eternal darkness.

The torches lit up a huge chamber in which trunks containing my clothes, jewels, paintings, and calligraphy had already been arranged. The workmen had respected my will and had added portraits of Scribe of Loyalty, Simplicity, and Prosperity-disguised as eunuchs-to the frescoes on the walls. On the ceilings my animals and serving women were already enjoying the carefree life of the other world.

The coffin was put onto a white marble catafalque up on an alabaster stage decorated with scenes of rejoicing.

The officiators recited the final prayers, then withdrew.

A deafening roar made the whole mountain tremble.

The door of rock closed.

The Gates of Heaven opened.