Empress

SIX

The same scene kept coming back to me in my dreams: Elder Sister emerging from her room wrapped in crimson silk, her face carefully made up, and every eyebrow plucked, resplendent as a goddess. I was about to take her hand when a surging crowd of strangers knocked me aside. My anguished cries were drowned out by deafening music. She was carried away by the jubilant crowd and disappeared forever.

When she was fourteen, Purity had married into the He Lan clan. Her husband was a gangly, sickly boy of fifteen who soon began a career in local government. As the years passed, he made little progress in the imperial hierarchy, but he became very well read, could hold a conversation about the Great Classics, and was an able painter on silk paper. Like most young aristocrats, he did not go home when he left work. The young lords of the town would take turns organizing banquets in the Houses of Flowers and would invite the most famous courtesans to join them at the table. Clandestine loves flourished as they teased each other. A young poetess introduced a young lord to the astonishing pleasures of the flesh, but she refused to become his concubine and slave in his gynaeceum. In his efforts to persuade her, he visited her pavilion with tenacious regularity and squandered his fortune. Precious stones could buy her smile but not her faithfulness. Other men had found their way into the courtesan’s rooms: A poor but educated man offering her a roll of silk could hope to be given a cup of tea; rich merchants with gold might be granted a perfumed kiss. When, at the age of twenty-five, she was found hanging from a beam, the whole town was devastated, but no one knew which thwarted love had made her kill herself. Without her, life had lost its spice: Elder Sister’s husband succumbed to the incurable illness of his grief. He died six months later.

At twenty-five, Elder Sister was a widow and a mother of two. She had put away her colored gowns and wrapped herself in dark tunics. She no longer left her apartments where she divided her days between reading and prayer. Believing her life was over, she hoped to find happiness for her future life through Buddhism.

I still remembered the image of her as a beautiful adolescent whose coquettish pouting seduced every person she met. When Purity had appeared at the gates of the palace, I saw a woman from the provincial aristocracy who was chillingly severe. She was covered in layers of tunics of heavy purple-blue-black satin and looked like a crow bearing evil omens. I made her take off her sinister clothes and dress in silks and muslins. I looked at her closely while she changed. What an extraordinary surprise to find she no longer had the straight legs, thin arms, and flat stomach of the sister I used to glimpse at in her bath! Her monastic clothes had been hiding a fertile bosom and generous hips: an ivory sculpture!

The servants had then announced the sovereign’s arrival, and Elder Sister had wanted to escape, but I held her back. She had insisted on putting her gloomy clothes back on and had prostrated herself on the ground, trembling shyly. Little Phoenix looked closely at her, and his expert eye saw beyond her immediate appearance. The novelty of a widow appealed to the sovereign, overwhelmed by the polished sweetness of the Court ladies. I encouraged him to seduce her. Through him I hoped to slip inside of a woman who had been close to me and very distant. The union between Little Phoenix and Purity took place in a pavilion I had prepared. That night my soul was in turmoil, accompanying my husband as he explored a sacred kingdom.

At thirty-one, when most women are in decline, Elder Sister had rediscovered her youth. Her silk gowns and crepe muslin tunics had revealed a proud and happy bosom. Her face had thrown off its gloomy veil and adopted a thousand languid expressions, displaying her sensual delight. She who had never been loved had now discovered the fervent caresses of an emperor. Her chastity had been breached, and she had allowed herself to be borne away on a wave of pleasure.

I had watched my sister blossoming with the pride of a craftsman contemplating his masterpiece. I had offered her part of my palace, a pavilion surrounded by blazing azaleas and camellias, with orange blossom and jasmine wafting their subtle fragrances around it. The Emperor had stopped pursuing the beauties to spend alternate nights in our beds.

That summer the Zhong Nan mountain was covered with pale, pastel colors and heady moisture. The cicadas moaned in the trees. The silken breeze gently stroked our shoulders. Our three-way agreement was an invitation toward the highest pinnacle of desire. One evening, when the musicians were singing age-old melodies outside the door, Little Phoenix affected drunkenness and tumbled Elder Sister and myself down onto his bed sewn with leaves of jade.

I hardly had time to think, my fingers glided over her delicate skin, and my lips pressed up against my sister’s. I felt as if I were holding myself in my arms and kissing my own burning lips. I moved carefully, afraid of hurting her, but Little Phoenix guided me in my discovery of her body, as if climbing a magnificent mountain. Her breasts were the peaks wreathed in eternal mists. Her stomach, a deep lake reflecting the blue of the sky. Snatches of our childhood came back to me. I saw Purity pulling a wooden duck behind her. I remembered Little Sister, a restless child who craved affection. Mother’s youthful figure loomed up from the past with her high topknot, her collar left open, her noble bearing, and her dazzlingly white breasts. I did not know what Elder Sister was thinking: She kept her eyes obstinately closed. Her awkward gestures implied that she had never made love with a woman. Was she shocked by my experience? Little Phoenix had penetrated me when my sister’s naked body rolled on top of mine. I gripped hold of Purity’s shoulders, for I wanted to take her with me on my celestial journey. Suddenly, two streams of tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.

Elder Sister was ashamed. Elder Sister was an ordinary, sensible woman, who kept her feet firmly on the ground.

Purity had fallen in love with my god-like husband. She would be punished for this impossible passion.

WHEN I LEFT the village of Wu, I had wanted to console my mother and to give myself courage when I said: “My position at the Palace is our one opportunity. Have confidence in my destiny. Do not weep.”

Sixteen years of separation-a split second or a whole eternity. When I arranged for Mother to be brought to the Forbidden City, I had been proud of fulfilling my promise. I had wanted to dazzle her with the riches and the glory waiting for her here, but my blood had frozen in my veins at the sight of this stooped old woman leaning on her cane. I had forgotten that Mother had borne me when she was forty-six and that she could grow old. She prostrated herself at my feet. In keeping with Court etiquette, I returned her greeting with a slight nod of my head. A searing pain carved through me: The happiness I claimed to be offering her was laughable.

Ever since childhood, Mother had demonstrated a tendency toward philosophy and a contempt for manual labor. She had abandoned the women’s duties prescribed by the ancestors to devote herself to a spiritual quest. When a team of workmen had restored her apartments in her family home, they had found a piece of paper hidden in a cleft in a beam. On it she had written the maxim for her existence: “Never to do evil and to spread generosity of heart to the four corners of the country.” Her father, the famous Great Minister Yang Da, had exclaimed, “My daughter is the future of our family!”

Until I took up my position at the palace, I had always venerated Mother as an idol: Her erudition was quite equal to a man’s. Her words were inspired; she had a serene strength that had protected me from the vices of the men in the clan. When she came to present herself at Court, I saw that sixteen years of misery had gradually worn her down; she had become passive, pessimistic, and conciliatory. Her words of wisdom that had rung comfortingly in my ears were reduced to the weary moans of a frightened old woman.

Mother had passed her fervor on to me. I had stolen her valiance. She had dreamed of seeing me married happily to a minor official and was terrified to see me fighting for the position of Empress.

“Once the moon is full,” she warned me, “it begins to wane; the higher we climb, the harder we fall. A man should learn to be satisfied with what he already has!”

Her pronouncements had irritated me, and I replied: “You have misunderstood me, good lady. Empress Wang has tarnished her title. Under her rule, the Inner Palace has sunk into chaos, and the sovereign’s life is in danger. I am determined to make His Majesty happy and peaceful. This is not a question of personal ambition.”

Later she had defended my rivals: “No one should kill a woman who can no longer do any harm. Buddha would have granted both criminals the chance to repent! Majesty, I beg you, shut them away in a monastery-give them an opportunity to pray for their future existence.”

“Buddha grants his unlimited compassion to the living because he is invincible,” I replied. “I am a mere mortal. Here in the Forbidden City, every life hangs by a thread. Even if I feel pity in my heart, my reason forbids it. Good lady, what you are asking is impossible.”

Later Mother learned of the sovereign’s liaison with Elder Sister. In veiled terms she criticized me for corrupting Purity’s virtue.

“The primary virtue in life,” I told her, “is order. Thanks to Purity, I have secured the imperial seed exclusively. Now there are no births anywhere outside my palace, and there is only one uncontested Mistress in the Inner City. That is how I have succeeded in imposing virtue that has been neglected for so long. The concubines have stopped their jealous posturing, the eunuchs no longer dare dally in intrigues. I have banished frivolity and introduced a mood of restraint. The Court ladies have followed my example by removing their jewels and wearing simple gowns and leggings. They have started studying the Great Classics and practicing sport. I have had the names of their titles changed: They are no longer called Precious Wife, Gracious Wife, or Delicious Concubine-all names that reduced them to sexual objects. They have become Supervisor of Piety, Overseer of Morality, and Servant of Wisdom. With the money that I have saved on our clothes, I have financed the construction of Buddhist temples so that messages from the Great One can spread to the four corners of Earth. Good lady, the sovereign’s kindness has seen an unloved widow blossom. The happiness of millions of people has resulted from her corruption. Purity is more virtuous than any religion!”

Mother was outraged, and she started to pray day and night to secure Buddha’s forgiveness for our incestuous affections. Purity was indifferent to her torment. I heaped honors and gifts on Mother and started treating her like a little girl. At the time, my sister and I could not imagine the fears of a woman who had seen a dynasty fall, a fortune dissolve, and fate overturned.

To us the inconstancies of this ephemeral world were still a source of poetic melancholy and negligible suffering.

I had enjoyed Little Phoenix’s favor for ten years, a miraculously long time for carnal passion to survive. Even though I had added to his sensual delight by offering him the young virgins I called to my bed, I knew that he would eventually tire of these repeated orgies and that one day he would succumb to a new infatuation. At thirty, Little Phoenix had become slow and listless. I felt responsible for this apathy that betrayed the boredom in his soul. While I was looking for a trustworthy young woman capable of reawakening his sexual energy, I learned that the sovereign’s heart had been inflamed once more and that his conquest had already been consummated. Her name was Harmony. She was Purity’s daughter.

Even when she was just twelve years old, word of her beauty had spread through both capitals. Key families and Court dignitaries had sent their most persuasive emissaries to my sister. Mother had opposed a very early marriage; at eighty, she could not bear to be separated from her granddaughter. The matrimonial negotiations broke up and then began again several times. None of them was ever very serious.

Harmony had been raised by her grandmother. The one reaching the twilight of her years idolized the one flowering with the dawn. The spoiled child had become a rebellious adolescent; the charms of puberty had probably awakened the sovereign’s attentions. It was also possible that this precocious niece had always nurtured a fascination for an inaccessible uncle. With her wide, curving brow; her fine, willful mouth, and her proud, haughty bearing; she was like me… alas, even down to her taste for incest.

I closed my eyes to this clandestine love. But the day Purity learned of this betrayal, she flew into a rage. One morning, a group of eunuchs burst into my palace. An argument had broken out between the Lady of the Kingdom of Han and her young rival. “The noble lady slapped her daughter,” I was told. “She called for a strong rope with which to strangle her!”

I ran to my sister’s pavilion. The governess’s cries announcing my arrival immediately calmed both women. Purity was lying prostrate, and Harmony was kneeling stiff and motionless beside her. Her face was rigid as an iron mask and showed no trace of tears. She was staring darkly at the ground and greeted me with one sharp gesture.

“What does this mean?” I asked them. “You have fought in the Inner Palace and for that you both deserve twenty strokes of the plank! For two women of my clan to argue like common shrews is an insult to my favor and my patience! Take Harmony away, shut her up, and have her copy out The Book of the Virtuous Women ten times!”

Once Harmony and her retinue had moved away, I spoke to my sister: “How could you get so angry that you forgot the dignity required by your rank? Before making such a scene, think of the mocking smiles of all the ladies and the laughter of all the high-ranking women in the Outer Court. Everyone envies the power our household enjoys. Why give them an opportunity to gossip about us? Have you thought of Mother? She is eighty-three. How would she cope with the sorrow if she saw you strangle her favorite granddaughter! Your extreme nobility demands that you be a model for every woman in the Empire. Is this any way to behave?”

Crippled with shame, she walked on her knees, pressed her forehead to the ground, and asked my forgiveness. I ordered the servants to serve us tea. A eunuch master of ceremonies appeared. He pounded the tea in the canister, brought the spring water to a boil, rinsed the cups, and let the green powder infuse before adding a pinch of salt.

Purity confided her distress to me: “Majesty, I have projected so many hopes and ambitions onto Harmony! All these dreams are now dashed forever. The gods have just robbed me of both the sovereign and my daughter. Who would dare to wed a young woman deflowered by the Son of Heaven? Why did I not marry her sooner? Is this a divine punishment for failing to observe abstinence as a widow?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she went on: “Majesty, I beg you, as my daughter’s body is sullied, send her to a monastery, exile her far from the capital. As a nun, she will learn to pray for her future life, and Buddha will forgive her for her impurity.”

As I gave her no reply, she insisted: “Children come into the world to ensure the continuation of the lineage. They grow up to fulfill their filial duties toward their parents. Why does this she-devil want to rob me of the dearest thing I have in the world? Why did I give birth to my own rival in love? Majesty, I offer you her life. Please apply the laws of the clan to her: the death sentence for those who dishonor us!”

I repressed my pity and announced icily: “Good lady, you are jealous. Is that a sentiment worthy of your rank? Did you think the Emperor belonged to you alone, that his favor would last forever?”

Purity’s face twisted with pain.

“Majesty, have you forgotten the suffering you endured when the two commoners were alive? Have you never wanted to have the Emperor to yourself for one day, for one month, for life? I have not allowed any other woman touch him but you. For all these years, I have fought for him to be ours alone, and now my own daughter challenges me. When I close my eyes, I can see the longing in their eyes; I hear the Son of Heaven whispering tender words; I imagine his expression when he is holding her in his arms. I am an old woman of thirty-seven, while, at fifteen, Harmony is at the height of her beauty. How can I compete with her? Such treachery! Such ingratitude! Such scandal! One of us must die!”

I tried to reason with her: “Good lady, you make me laugh. You who read the Sacred Writings so fervently, you who have been reciting the sutra beside our venerable Mother since childhood, have you still not grasped that the law of impermanence applies to all things? That a man’s heart is far more vulnerable than a pearl of glass and is pervaded by inconstancy? Our sovereign has never loved one particular woman. He is permanently in pursuit of love, excitement, and his own delight. Neither you nor I can confront the whims of his heart; it would be as pointless and pretentious as trying to stop the sun from shining or the moon from waning. We can choose only resignation.”

“I would rather die.”

I hardened my tone still further: “Good lady, you have been raised to the first imperial rank. You are treated in a way worthy of a princess by blood. You owe all that to His Majesty. We are both on a downward spiral: We will never again be as fresh as we once were; we will not be able to keep a man for long when he thirsts for new beauty. Be grateful that his favor is staying in the family, that it is not some scheming outsider who would fight me for the title of Empress. Never forget how my deposed rivals Wang and Xiao ended their days. We too could fall like them.”

Purity opened her eyes wide with horror, then threw her hands over her face. She let out a rasping sob.

“I see now!” she cried. “A few years ago you pushed me into the sovereign’s arms so that I could keep him in your bed. Now you think I am old and tired, so you looked for a young girl who could act as bait for you and you chose Harmony! You can think only of holding on to your power!”

“Good lady, you have gone mad,” I said, leaping to my feet. “For all these years, I have never thought of my own happiness! I have struggled and upheld our family’s dignity, and I have worked for the prosperity of the Empire. Everything I have endured has been turned into the beautiful silks you wear and the sumptuous palace in which you live. There is not one thread, not one grain, not one crumb of your gilded existence that you do not owe to my hard work. Now you can meditate on that- I am leaving.”

Elder Sister threw herself at me and blocked my path with her body. She tore open her dress, and her breasts sprang out.

“Look, Majesty, I’m not yet ugly. I have no lines on my face or my breasts. I rub my groin with powders of pearl every day; it is still soft enough to accommodate the divine member. Majesty, give me back your Little Phoenix. I swear I shall satisfy his every desire. I will be grateful to you even into the next life!”

Elder Sister’s sobs rang out, echoing back to us through the deserted halls so that they sounded like the howls of some desperate animal. I sighed and left her to her pain.

When the Emperor came home from his hunting trip at twilight, he ran to my room.

“Heavenlight,” he said, watching my face closely, “I have heard that the Lady of the Kingdom of Han was angry and that you have had Harmony locked up. Why?”

I was saddened by Elder Sister’s selfishness and heartbroken at my husband’s frivolity, and I resented Harmony for upsetting the equilibrium that I had established in the Inner Palace.

My silence frightened the sovereign. He took my hands.

“For all these years,” he said, “I have had only you in my heart. The other women are just so much dust, butterflies for a day. You, though, are a tree that has taken root in my flesh.”

His tender words did nothing to move me. My husband used sweet caressing words like these to manipulate women’s hearts.

“The Lady of the Kingdom of Han is becoming unbalanced,” he admitted. “She spies on me and makes scenes. She cries all night and makes my life dark and sinister. If she were not your sister, I would have withdrawn her title and sent her to the Cold Palace.”

“The Lady of the Kingdom of Han has served His Majesty with devotion,” I said with a note of irony. “Have you forgotten the days of happiness so quickly?”

“I no longer desire her. I am tired of her fits of jealousy. I don’t want to make love with a bundle of tears. Do you understand that?”

“Is that a good reason to show an interest in Harmony? Now that you have done the rounds of the women in my clan, have you thought of what lies in store for them in their future?”

The Emperor flushed scarlet.

“I never think about that sort of thing,” he stammered, “because you are there to help me resolve all my problems. I have even entrusted my government and my empire to you. She’s very like you, the girl. So wild… so ardent! My sweet Heavenlight, life is short, and Harmony is my one last desire. Let me have her, and in return you shall have more honor than any empress has ever had!”

“Your Majesty has been suffering from violent migraines for some time,” I said in a gentler voice. “Your treatment requires a period of abstinence. Is this the time to be abandoning yourself to excesses?”

“My impatience to hold Harmony in my arms does me more harm than anything else. Please arrange this for me, please.”

“Your Majesty has already fathered seven princes, enough to ensure the continuity of his dynasty. Like all the women in the gynaeceum, Harmony must undergo treatment to stop her bearing children.”

The Emperor drew me into his arms.

“Do as you please. You are the Mistress of the Palace!”

Harmony had refused her meal in the pavilion where she was locked up. When my serving women opened the door and lit the candles, she turned to look at me; she looked disheveled but showed no hint of remorse. It was as if she had lost all the heedless joy of childhood in one night. Her drawn features and her dark expression were those of a woman consumed by hatred.

With her forehead on the ground, she said, “Majesty, send me to a monastery or to the Cold Palace, condemn me to death, I would have no regrets. My body already belongs to the Son of Heaven. I am happy to offer him my life.”

Harmony’s impetuousness reminded me of my own. I had experienced this same voluptuous suffering, this heroic sadness, but I had lost my innocence: I no longer believed in that ridiculous word-love.

I ordered the young girl to look up. I looked her right in the eye and said: “I shall spare your life because you are the daughter of the Lady of the Kingdom of Han, my beloved sister, and because the Lady of the Kingdom of Dai, my venerable mother, would die of grief if you left this sullied Earth before she did. You are fifteen. The path of life before you is long. Today I am giving you a choice: Either I arrange to find you a good marriage and you shall have a husband and children, or I shall offer you a palace in the Inner Court. But you should know that, like your mother’s, your liaison with His Majesty will never be official. You will remain the Empress’s niece. Your body will never be touched by mortal men again; you will never have children.”

Harmony prostrated herself three times. “Who am I to make such a decision?” she said darkly. “My fate depends on the sovereign’s wishes. If he prefers my mother, I should kill myself straight away.”

Instead of expressing her gratitude, she was defying my authority.

And yet I felt no anger. I had become a spectator to all their insanities in the name of love.

ELDER SISTER BEGAN to wither.

On a ruling from the sovereign, Harmony received the title of Lady of the Kingdom of Wei and was raised to the first imperial rank. This august favor granted her a magnificence that no other princess could hope to rival. A lake was dug in the grounds of her residence to the south of the Imperial City. The excavated earth was used to create hills topped with pavilions several floors high overlooking the Capital. It was in the center of this body of clear water, in the endless meadows of lotuses and water lilies, that the favorite received the Emperor and his retinue. Their boats glided through the mist with musicians at the prow playing the latest melodies and dancing girls on the bridge twirling their long sleeves. Acrobats spun in the air at the top of the masts and created shapes together with extraordinary virtuosity.

The Lady of the Kingdom of Wei also owned several pavilions within the walls of the Forbidden City. She came and went between the two palaces on a Persian horse branded with the imperial iron. Dressed as a man, preceded by eunuchs and a detachment of guards, and followed by young girls dressed as pages, she would gallop through the avenues of Long Peace raising clouds of dust.

Mother and daughter no longer spoke to each other. They were rivals in love and murderously jealous of each other. When Purity received a piece of jewelry, Harmony would demand one twice as valuable. When His Majesty, consumed with nostalgia, furtively visited the mother for a cup of tea, the daughter would immediately be informed by her spies and would send word that she was dying of some strange illness. Horrified, the Emperor would leap up, and Purity would throw herself at his feet and soak the bottom of his tunic with her bitter tears. The sovereign would have to tear himself from her embraces with a broken heart and an aching soul.

The mother aged as the daughter blossomed. The august visits to Purity’s palace became less frequent and then stopped. The sovereign no longer summoned Elder Sister to his banquets for fear that the two women might argue. The favorite’s arrogance irritated me, but I held my anger in check. The fragile harmony within the gynaeceum depended on the calm and generosity of its Empress, and I pretended to know nothing of the turbulence amongst its capricious younger members.

Elder Sister followed me everywhere with her weeping. She was deaf to my reasoning and went around in circles of her own despair. I eventually tired of her miserable monologues; there were affairs of State calling for my attention: Famine and epidemics were ravaging the south. I turned away from my sister’s unhappiness in love and devoted myself to my people’s suffering.

In our Inner Palace, which was the size of an entire town, it was easy to melt into the labyrinth of passageways and to disappear in the tangle of gardens. Elder Sister was still alive, but she was already a ghost. My people informed me that her terrible sorrow had made her lose weight. She now refused to leave her palace for fear that people would make fun of her thin, wasted frame. The turmoil in the Court settled. Harmony was growing more charming; her laughter brightened our ageing pavilions. The household became accustomed to Elder Sister’s absence. They forgot her.

One evening when I summoned Elder Sister to my room to gossip with her, I was informed that she had not been living in the Forbidden City for three months. She had gone back to her property. I sent eunuchs to give her dishes served at my table, and they came back to tell me that the Lady of the Kingdom of Han was confined to bed. She was taking a drug that made her forget her heartbreak; she was living a half life, barely awake. I sent her a letter talking to her of life’s simple pleasures, of my affection for her, and of the future. I begged her to get up and come back to my side. I promised I would find men who would cherish her without the sovereign knowing. She replied only once to my countless letters. Her words quavered across paper white as a shroud: “Loving just once is enough for me.”

In the first year of the age of Dazzling Prosperity, on the first day of the seventh moon, I was informed that Elder Sister was dying. I rushed the imperial doctors to her bedside, and, at nightfall, their messengers knocked at the doors to my palace: The previous evening the Lady of the Kingdom of Han had taken a mortal poison. She had just exhaled her last breath.

An icy chill swept over me. I remembered the pale, ravishing child reading by candlelight. I remembered the scene when, dressed like a goddess, she had set off for a distant land to wed her destiny. My life was a tree that had spread too wide and robbed my sisters of light. They had both been like fragile flowers uprooted by a storm and laid at the foot of my altar.

THE EMPEROR WEPT over Purity’s death and called for an imperial funeral. He raised Mother to the position of Lady of the Kingdom of Rong and granted her the ultimate privilege of coming into the Palace on a litter. I adopted Purity’s son and named him as heir to my late father. To the detriment of my brothers’ children, when Intelligence was twenty years old, he inherited the title and the revenue of the Great Lord of the Kingdom of Zhou, he became the principal officiating priest in the worship of the Wu ancestors, and he took on his duties at Court.

The generous offerings and elaborate ceremonies devoted to the deceased did nothing to heal my sorrow. I could not shake off a feeling of guilt. To cut short this pointless grief, I gave orders to close the residences that had belonged to the Lady of the Kingdom of Han.

But her death had thrown the shadow of doubt over my life. Instead of accepting the changing of the seasons, the loss of her happiness and the decline in her beauty, Purity had rebelled against the laws of nature. The demon she had fought had been nothing other than an obsessive desire to make time stand still. Mutilating herself and destroying herself were her ways of refusing inevitable failure. There was a nobility and veracity in that desperate gesture that constantly troubled me.

I felt I was growing old, floating. Everything pitted an Empress nearing forty against a young favorite: The beauty treatments and the beneficial effects of medicine that were a constraint and a necessity to the first were a distraction and a waste to the second. Specialists had started to treat my failing kidneys, my slackening intestines, and my back damaged by the weight of my headdresses. The eunuch masseurs ran their vigorous hands over my face to smooth my wrinkles; they rubbed my breasts, pulled my stomach, and twisted my buttocks to firm up the muscles. All these manipulations convinced me that this body, which had brought four children into the world, would soon be a wasteland.

In the sixth moon of the second year of the Breath of the Dragon, I brought a chubby pink boy into the world. His laughter and tears gave me new confidence. I called him Miracle. Let him drive the demons from my life and fill my horizons with his golden beams of light!

The blissful happiness of this event devastated Harmony. Now over twenty, the very noble Lady of the Kingdom of Wei could not escape the torments that ambush women at particular points in their lives: All the pride of youth was also a fear of decrepitude. To keep the sovereign’s favor for any length of time, she felt she must have a child.

She summoned Mother with her tears and sent her to me as an emissary. I offered a cushion to the Lady of the Kingdom of Rong who had hardly made herself comfortable before she started describing the agonies of imposed sterility and begging for my clemency.

Determined not to give in, I told her: “Only concubines, wives, officiators, servant girls, and ladies in finery-in fact all the women inscribed on the register of the gynaeceum-may conceive for His Majesty. The Lady of the Kingdom of Wei is a relation from the outside. She has palaces outside the crimson walls of the Forbidden City. Her freedom means she could conceive a child by a man in the ordinary world. If, by mistake, the Emperor recognized the infant as his own, it would be a terrible blow to the imperial lineage.”

“Majesty,” Mother began, trying to move me with her words, “I have survived every hardship in life thanks to my children. Without you I would have let myself die of grief when my husband died. The most appalling suffering in life is to be alone in old age. I do not want Harmony to end her days alone. My granddaughter is prepared to give up her freedom and to accept all the constraints of the Inner Court. Give her a title as an imperial concubine; she could have a child quite legitimately…”

“Good lady,” I interrupted her sharply, “in every era of dynastic history, imperial children have been used as weapons by ambitious favorites. The births of princes have brought more disruption than happiness. That is why the sovereign and I have decided to control women’s fertility to serve him. It is their duty to entertain the Son of Heaven and mine to be responsible for procreation. This ruling is a guarantee of peace within the Palace and of stability in the Empire. At present I have brought four sons into the world: The continuation of the dynasty is guaranteed; the sovereign is satisfied of that. He does not need any more children. Harmony will be lucky not to risk her life in childbirth. She will live longer, and her beauty will be more easily sustained. She should understand my concern and be grateful for it!”

“Majesty,” Mother said, falling to her knees and sobbing, “I shall soon die, and I want Harmony’s future to be secured while I am still alive. She is your niece. She owes you her upbringing and her destiny. She will always be your servant, indebted to you. Majesty, she will never betray you. Please let her know the joys of motherhood!”

I held my anger in check and lifted her to her feet as I said playfully: “Madam, are you encouraging incest now? Do you no longer fear the wrath of the gods? If Harmony is so determined about this idea, then she must leave the Capital, secretly marry someone, and have children!”

In that year the Emperor handed over all his political affairs to me.

His signature on the decrees that I wrote was now a mere formality. The fate of an entire people weighed on my shoulders, and I was submerged in affairs of state. In the frenzy of work, I mourned Elder Sister. I went to bed late at night and rose early in the morning, and I was no longer concerned about the sovereign who had stopped visiting my bedchamber.

My silence and indifference only increased Harmony’s resentment. She secretly accused me of having killed her mother with poison and claimed that she in turn was in danger. When I was informed of her strange complaints, I summoned her and reprimanded her fiercely. The favorite kept her head lowered, but there was a provocative irony in her prostration. News of my anger spread, and the next day the sovereign brought me a precious gift: The preface to The Orchid’s Pavilion written by the master calligrapher Wang Xi Zhi. My heart leapt with joy, but I was still wary and with good cause: He went on to express his wish to confer a vacant title of concubine on Harmony.

“Majesty,” I told him, “your servant has never forgotten that she was once a Talented One in your august father’s court, and she is still infinitely grateful to Your Majesty who defied custom by making her Empress. But would it be sensible for Your Majesty to turn his back on conventions twice in the same reign by receiving the niece of this Empress-whose legitimacy is still contested-into the Gyneaceum ten years later? Imagine the consternation of the Outer Court and the rest of the world! Future historians will not be able to distinguish between love and flippancy or sincerity and perversion. Their frivolous comments would cast a shadow over Your Majesty’s glorious reputation! Would Your Majesty deign to give me an answer: Is there a difference between an imperial wife and the favor the Lady of the Kingdom of Wei enjoys? Your Majesty’s generosity is boundless, and this favorite has not been neglected in any way. Why make a change for the worse when Your Majesty treads the path of righteousness?”

My celestial husband lost heart, and I spoke in a softer voice: “My mother, the honorable Lady of the Kingdom of Rong, has spoiled Harmony. This young woman belongs to a new generation that knows nothing of duty and sacrifice. Her boredom is the sickness that comes with a life of luxury and leisure. I shall put her to work! Would she like to conduct the Inner Institute of Letters?”

THE EUNUCHS“ CRIES shattered the calm of my palace. My intendant, still breathless from running frantically, threw himself at my feet: ‘His Majesty the Emperor has secretly called Great Secretary Shang Quan Yi to his offices. He has asked him to draw up an edict to have four Majesty dismissed!”

I threw down the brush I was using to make notes on ministerial letters. I did not even wait for my litter to arrive but picked up the hem of my dress and strode out. I was crushed under a weight of conflicting motions. I admired the poet Shang Guan Yi’s literary talent and his moral rectitude and had asked the sovereign to confer the seal of Great Secretary on him. Instead of showing gratitude, he was now plotting my downfall. His betrayal did not hurt me, but it cast doubt on my intuition about character. How could I have been mistaken? After Wu Ji’s death, when Loyalty was deposed as heir, I had eliminated all their close supporters, but, not wanting to see too much blood spilt, I had limited the cope of the persecutions. Was it the survivors of these events who were scheming for their revenge now? My role as advisor to the sovereign had hocked the dignitaries bristling with ancestral prejudices who relegated women to the ranks of animals and children. They had become increasingly anxious and dissatisfied as my authority grew. They saw my part in political life as nothing better than meddling. Was it they who were plotting to distance me from power? Harmony was the third possible threat within the Inner City. I realized that my own niece had become a dangerous rival. Without her slanderous words that had instilled doubts in my husband’s heart, would he have taken this step?

As I drew aside the door to his offices, I saw the color drain from the Emperor’s face. A scroll of paper was spread out on a low table before him; the ink was still wet. He tried in vain to cover it with the sleeves of his tunic. Behind him the Great Secretary Shang Guan Yi had backed away as I came in, and he had melted into the shadows.

I fell to my knees.

“Twenty five years of agreement and happiness, four imperial princes-the fruits of a union that I believed would last forever-is all this already coming to an end? Majesty, have you forgotten our daughter’s death, have you forgotten Future’s difficult birth, all the turmoil we have confronted? If I were sterile, I would be resigned to the dishonor of dismissal and the pain of abandonment without speaking out to defend myself. But the heir to the throne and the imperial princes will demand an explanation. What should I tell them? Ever since Your Majesty conferred the position of Empress on me, not one day, not one night has passed when I have not thought of my responsibilities and my duty: to incarnate celestial goodness, to help Your Majesty, to keep harmony in the Forbidden City, and to be a model to all Chinese women. If I have committed unforgivable errors, if I have failed in my commitments, if I have neglected my virtue as a woman, please tell me of these things before repudiating me!”

Unsure how to react, the Emperor stammered: “I have been told that you brought a Taoist into the palace and that you asked him to use evil magic. I have been told that you wanted to dispose of me and become regent. You know that the use of witchcraft is punishable by death.”

“I knew Your Majesty,” I interrupted him, “when he still bore the title of King of Jin. Ever since then my fate has been tied up with his. I have followed Your Majesty as you have risen. Now I am like a wave carried by the power of the ocean. Without his support, without his generosity, I would be the froth on the beach that evaporates at dawn. I cannot help but wish Your Majesty ten thousand years of life. Have you already forgotten? When you were first struck with a migraine, you ordered me to find monks who might exorcise the demons haunting the Inner Palaces. The leader of the Taoist monks on the Mountain of the Celestial Terrace recommended Master Gou. To trick the evil spirits that manifest themselves a thousand different ways, he disguised himself as a eunuch and proceeded to pursue them with utmost discretion. I said nothing of this to not frighten Your Majesty. You could speak to him yourself and to the leader of the Taoist monks and to the eunuch who is Great Intendant of the Inner Court. The malicious rumors you have heard are trying to destroy the harmony between us, which is the envy of many, but lies can never stand up to the clarity of the truth. Majesty, please verify what your servant has told you before accusing her unjustly: Call for an enquiry! The facts and the witnesses will persuade you of my innocence.”

“It is true,” said the Emperor, scratching his head, “that the hatred and ambition people have attributed to you are unlikely from you. I do now remember that order…”

My anger and my indignation finally exploded: “Am I a usurper? Am I a plotter and an assassin? While empresses from previous dynasties tried to submit governments to the authority of their relations from outside the Palace, I exiled my own brothers to distant provinces to show the entire world my selflessness. What more could I ask for in this life when my husband is the Emperor, my son is the heir, and I carry twenty-four trees in blossom on my headdress? Granted, I read the political reports that Your Majesty entrusts to me, and I occasionally give the Court advice, but my position as Empress and my duties as Mother of the People grant me those responsibilities. How could I silence my opinions when Your Majesty has always encouraged me to express them? For ten whole years, I have been working constantly for the prosperity of the dynasty. How can my commitment to the greatness of the Empire be confused with ambition or my devotion to Your Majesty be distorted into crimes of a usurper?”

I moved toward him on my knees.

“Majesty, show me what you have written.”

The Emperor flushed with shame. He picked up the imperial decree and tore it to pieces.

“It was not I; it was Shang Guan Yi who wrote it. Do not hold this against me.”

“Shang Guan Yi,” I said, turning toward him, “when His Majesty raised you to the position of Great Secretary, it was so that you could act as his best adviser. Instead of showing gratitude and serving the cause of the Empire, you have manipulated his trust and sown discord through the Palace! Do you acknowledge your crimes?”

Silent and quaking with fear, the traitor struck his forehead on the ground.

Once back at my palace, I sent a letter to the Great Chancellor Xu Jing Zong, ordering him to lead an investigation into Shang Guan Yi and the eunuch Wang Fu Sheng who had slandered my name. In three days he untangled the threads of a dark plot: Ten years earlier Shang Guan Yi had been an advisor in the Eastern Palace of the heir Loyalty where the eunuch Wang Fu Sheng was in charge of running the palace affairs. When Loyalty lost his title and was banished from the Capital, the two vassals had sworn to ensure their master’s return. By pretending to be upright and loyal to the sovereign, they had earned his trust and duped the vigilance of the government.

On the morning of the thirteenth day of the twelfth moon, eunuch messengers ran constantly to and fro through the corridors of the Forbidden City bringing me news of the audience.

After the prostrations, the Great Chancellor’s resounding voice boomed: “Majesty, ever since her accession, the Empress’s virtue has illuminated the entire land of China. The fragrance of her reputation has been carried on the wind and spread to the furthest limits of the deserts and the very extremities of the oceans. Not one day has passed in which the Yellow People in this vast world under the heavens have not rejoiced in this favor granted them by the gods. Defaming the Mistress of the Empire and plotting against the Mother of the Supreme Son is to commit a crime against the sovereign who appointed her. Behind these traitors whose faces have been revealed today lurks the shadow of the commoner Loyalty, who was banished from Court for addressing disrespectful words to Your Majesty. Instead of meditating on filial piety, the banished commoner has disguised himself as a woman and trained in witchcraft; he intends to raise an army against the Court, clinging to the feverish hope that he will one day be Master of the World. He is behind this plot that stands to serve his ambitions! Here are his servants’ confessions and the intercepted letters between Shang Guan Yi and his former master.”

A good many ministers stepped forward from their positions and took turns to speak. Some praised me, and others denounced the conspiracy. The sovereign ordered the arrest of the guilty parties. The soldiers of the guard took up their arms and seized Shang Guan Yi, who protested his innocence in vain. They tore off his cap that had distinguished him as a scholar, his ivory tablet, and his dignitary’s belt. With his hair awry and his tunic torn, he was dragged from the audience hall.

It was not long before judgment was passed: Three ministers of justice unanimously called for the death sentence against the principle conspirators. The imperial decree fell, and Shang Guan Yi and Wang Fu Sheng were executed along with their entire families. In the house where he was living under close surveillance, Loyalty received orders to commit suicide. In Court, Liu Xiang Dao lost his title of Great Minister for having been a close friend to Shang Guan Yi. I exiled every politician about whom there was the least whiff of suspicion.

The sovereign was affected by the betrayal of those he had believed to be loyal. When he had ordered Shang Guan Yi to write the edict for my deposition, he had been acting out of anger. Now how appalled he was to realize that a marital quarrel had served the purposes of a huge conspiracy! When I had refused to grant Harmony a title as concubine, enraged, the Emperor had realized that my authority overshadowed his own.

After our reconciliation, I was more careful about how I behaved and expressed myself. I was annoyed with myself for neglecting a man’s pride and a sovereign’s sensibilities. The incident dulled Little Phoenix’s appetite for politics. He was tormented by arthritis and headaches; incapacitated by these difficulties, he could no longer concentrate on debates. On the grounds that peace and prosperity reigned over the Empire, he abolished the morning salutations held at dawn every day, and the officials now gathered only every other day. Soon, weary of asking questions and holding discussions in his audiences, he suggested having a gauze screen behind his throne and putting my seat there.

People had known for some time that the sovereign made no decisions without consulting me and that eunuch messengers went backward and forward between the Outer City and the gynaeceum during audiences. This shuttling lost a great deal of time for the government and delayed emergencies. Never in the history of the dynasties had an empress reigned behind a curtain while her husband was alive, but, since Shang Guan Yi’s execution, the dignitaries had been afraid of angering me. The plan received approval from the majority; I stepped outside the City of Women for the first time and attended the audience with my husband.

The first year of the Era of the Crowned Sky was marked by the consecration of Tai Mountain. The splendor of this event erased the shadow cast over Court by the traitors’ executions. Great Remission was granted to the world, and several banished officials saw their exclusion from the Capital reversed. My cousins in their distant postings immediately asked for permission to come and congratulate me. Half way through the seventh moon, both men, who had waited patiently for their turn in the imperial lodgings, were able to prostrate themselves at my feet. In keeping with custom, they offered me specialties from the regions in which they were posted.

I deigned to invite them to a family feast with Mother, Harmony, and Intelligence in the Inner palace. The awnings were raised round the hall, letting darkness glide over our gowns. The wind rustled through the chrysanthemums and breathed its bitter perfume over us. Dancing girls waved their sleeves of orange and mauve brocade. Their melancholy voices sang of the wild geese leaving for far-off lands.

The eunuchs carried in lychee wine brought by my cousins. The elder of the two brothers stood up, poured the wine into my goblet, and offered it to me. I ordered Harmony to test the temperature because, according to legend, this wine was drunk very cold. The Lady of the Kingdom of Wei stood up and emptied the glass.

“Delicious.”

Her voice strangled in her throat. She was gripped by a violent convulsion, and she rolled to the ground, groaning terribly. Then she suddenly stopped moving. Eunuchs and servants ran in. I screamed murder and had my cousins seized. Mother fainted. Intelligence turned over his sister’s stiffened body: Black blood was flowing from the five orifices of her face. She was dead.

The following day the moon was full. The banquet celebrating the middle of autumn was cancelled. The Emperor dined alone with me. He drowned his heartbreak in drunken tears and promised to condemn to death the two men who had failed in their attempt to poison me.

The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.

AT THE AGE of ninety-one, Mother abandoned our sullied earth. The thought of her parting had tormented me for so long that once it had become a reality, it distressed me less. During her lifetime, she had never completely understood me. Now that she was dead, she had joined the divinities that brightened my nights with their gentle shining. Her funeral arrangements provided an opportunity for an extraordinary display of wealth and esteem. The sovereign abstained from appearing at the morning audience three times, and the Court and government followed their master’s example by observing the deep mourning usually reserved for empresses. The Chinese people dressed in linen and hemp to weep her august passing. Monasteries at the four corners of Earth rang their bells and prayed for her celestial journey. The glorious apotheosis that Mother enjoyed after her death was proof of my power. On the day of her burial, the funeral cortege processing out of the town stretched for more than one hundred lis. After the Emperor’s parade and the parade of kings and princesses, came the ministers, foreign princes, dignitaries, and crowds of common people. Over and above all this pomp and splendor, I wanted the woman who had brought me into the world to be paid special homage. The imperial regiments played their horns, blew their war bugles, and beat their battle drums. Like the Princess of the Sun of Ping, an exceptional woman who had fought to found the dynasty, Mother was to leave our world with the military honors granted only to men.

Until her dying day, Mother had cherished and protected Intelligence. It was only after she was buried that I authorized judges to investigate this nephew I could no longer tolerate. His mother and his sister had been imperial favorites, and he himself bore the flamboyant title of Lord of the Kingdom of Zhou: Having power thrust upon him so easily had gone to his head. He was beautiful and captivating, which had given him a reputation as a womanizer. Instead of thinking of his career, he had concentrated on his countless amorous adventures. With a group of affluent young peers, he had squandered his inheritance in the pursuit of unknown pleasures. He had even gone so far as to seduce the girl betrothed to the Supreme Son while she was making an offering in a temple. For fear of being seen, they would meet in secret in an inn beside the serpentine river on the edge of a wood of apricot trees. Their love was discovered by chance; my husband was furious and banished the betrothed girl’s family. While he was in prison, Intelligence screamed that I had poisoned his sister and had had him arrested for fear of his vengeance. The jailors silenced his absurd pronouncements with a sound beating.

Winter had come. My disgraced nephew lost his title and his fortune and was banished from the Capital. I sent a faithful guardsman to give him some warm clothes in his camp on the Mountain of the Extreme. When the lieutenant returned, he presented me with a silk belt on a silver tray. He informed me that, overcome with shame and remorse, Intelligence had asked to be hanged from a tree.

I no longer had any relations from the outside in Court, and this absence weakened my position. My family had been built and dismantled to suit me. I had given every one of them wealth and position, but Elder Sister’s renunciation had been the first betrayal, which had invited others. Instead of following my rise, they had chosen to fall. My childhood was dead; there were no longer any faces around me to remind me of the distant landscape of innocence. Father and Mother had slipped away, and my sisters had followed them. I had to carry on, accompanied by my regrets.

I called my nephews from my father’s clan back from banishment to fill this void. I conferred the title of Father’s heir and head of the clan on Piety, the eldest. One family had been destroyed, and a new one would be built. With my brothers’ and cousins’ sons back in favor, I set up the village of Wu in Court. The younger generation understood that I had power over their success or their demise. They would show fear and adulation for me. I would help them weave a labyrinth of power that would allow me to govern with nothing to fear.

A great emptiness had been carved out in my soul; I watched all the effervescence of the world with a derisive smile. I still had the warmth of life within me, though, and enthusiasm for the future. There was still the Tang dynasty and its vast provinces. The millions of souls in the Empire had become a huge family in which I was the embodiment of an energetic and authoritarian mother. I was over forty, and I held in my hand an invisible sword that sliced through every illusion. The sharpness of the blade gave me its icy and dazzling strength. I no longer believed in the compassion of men; I believed in that of the gods. I had averted my eyes from my suffering and fixed them on the stars.