Empress

SEVEN

The Emperor Lordly Forebear had brandished his sword and conquered the Chinese lands with arms. When the Emperor Eternal Ancestor had risen to the throne, he had healed the wounds of a ravaged country. Thirty years after it was founded, our Tang dynasty had all the fragile grandeur of a convalescing empire. In our hands it would see unprecedented prosperity or fall back into poverty. It would be a unified power or would splinter into kingdoms.

Our august predecessor had been chiefly preoccupied with agrarian developments, and, like him, we continued to lower land taxes. Weaving factories proliferated along the banks of both great rivers. To encourage households all over China, I set an example by rearing silk worms in the imperial parks. While the sovereign personally took part in more and more ritual ceremonies for the cultivation of the land, I conducted the meticulous celebrations for harvesting mulberry leaves so that the Goddess of Weavers would give us her blessing.

Caravans came from the west in search of porcelain and silk, breathing new life into our civilization. Our women, tired of being swaddled in several layers of dresses with long sleeves, now chose tunics with narrow sleeves, wide trousers, and leather boots that freed their feet from the constraints of rigid shoes with curled toes. The dizzying height of our traditional headdresses required hours of work, and they were so heavy that they impaired our movements. The desert women wore their hair simply dressed, crowned with light felt hats; by imitating them, we could walk or run as fast as men.

The craze for exotic spices and foreign foods kept expanding. Furniture from western kingdoms streamed into China, piled on camels’ backs. High-level chairs and tables and raised beds allowed us to stretch our legs and brought beneficial comforts to our everyday lives. Our ancestral arts favored restraint, purity, and metaphysical abstraction, but this quest for a spiritual essence denied the warmth of the senses and the whims of the heart. The music from the oasis conquered us with its powerful impulsive rhythms and immodest palpitations. The twirling dances from those parts-so different from the Chinese dances that included restricted and graceful slowness and ritual gestures-showed us all the beauty of spontaneity and reconciled for us the sensuous pleasures that our sages had neglected for so long.

Imperial patrols guaranteed the safety of the Silk Road through the Gobi desert. Inside the Great Wall, new inns had been built to make the journey easier for travelers. In Long Peace I opened academies to provide a forum for foreign scholars and Chinese tutors to pass on their knowledge, train interpreters, and compile dictionaries in every language.

Officials complained about the growing number of temples dedicated to unknown idols, but I ignored these pointless concerns. Buddha was a god who had been revealed to the West, and the spread of the Buddhist faith had never eclipsed the glory of the deities we had venerated since the dawn of time. Every religion was a blade that allowed its faithful to carve up the lie that is life. I encouraged my people to choose the tool that suited them best.

In my eyes, a country’s enthusiasm for other customs was the mark of a great civilization that could absorb every difference. This new wealth and the abundance of our own ancient heritage had transformed China into a stellar empire that shone beyond its own borders. Distant kingdoms dreamed of Long Peace as a city destined to be happy and prosperous. Our history, which had been related through the dynasties by Court chroniclers, was a generous source from which men could draw ideas and reflections. Our criteria for elegance became the universal points of reference for good taste. Western kings and far-eastern princes sent their scholars to our Court to study politics, justice, administration, military organization, medicine, literature, the arts, and architecture. Numerous foreign capitals took their inspiration from the example set by Long Peace, and their imperial palaces were smaller copies of ours. Chinese was the most widespread language in the world, and it became the official language of diplomacy with which every kingdom could communicate. The morals and ethics of Confucius were adopted by many countries and served as a code of behavior and an official doctrine.

Inside the Great Wall, I encouraged trade between the towns of the Yellow River and the River Long. I constantly created new routes to stimulate exchanges between different regions. Nevertheless, the rivers remained my own preferred means of transport. Forty years later, I still could not forget the huge sailing boats laden with mountains of goods. Every year I opened a new canal to provide irrigation for the fields and a link between the rivers.

Long Peace, the greatest trading town under heaven, prospered. Luoyang, Yangzhou, and Jinzhou became commercial crossroads where commoner clans accrued new fortunes. Since the dawn of time, merchants had occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. Previous Courts had treated them as thieves, but I recognized their active participation in the country’s prosperity: Their greed spurred on an increase in expertise and furthered productivity among farmers and craftsmen; their speculations guaranteed closer links between the north and the south and the towns and the country. Their dynamic outlook contrasted with the weighty aristocracy with their Great Names and their autocratic way of life that was now hampering the Empire’s development.

These old families were major landowners and had reached their peak during the Wei and Jin dynasties. Within their fortified farms, which were like completely independent kingdoms, they intermarried and defied central authority by refusing any interference from the outside world. When our Tang dynasty was founded and the Emperor Lordly Forebear distributed noble titles to his comrades in arms, this gesture was frowned on. When the Emperor Eternal Ancestor published his Book of Clans in which he put the imperial family before the Great Names, he too was jeered at. As the daughter of an ennobled merchant, I would never forget how the old aristocracy had treated me with contempt. More than any previous sovereign, I wanted to dismantle an outdated world and its obsolete hierarchy.

An imperial decree forbade a dozen of the key families from arranging marriages with one another. Two ministers who had been born commoners were given the responsibility of establishing a new social order. They wrote the Book of Names, which was accepted as an authority so that the new titles given out by the sovereign came before the old nobility.

Ever since ancient times, the Court had recruited its highest officials from the Empire’s aristocratic clans, and their duties had been handed down from father to son. Politics was a matter of inheritance, something that was constantly redistributed among the privileged. Matrimonial alliances reinforced the influence of ambitious households that held sway over sovereigns. Emperor Yang of the previous dynasty had invented a system of recruitment by public competition that allowed scholars to earn state responsibilities and the title of mandarin. But until now this method of selection had been restricted to the appointment of minor officials whose careers would always be limited because of their origins.

Now our empire was evolving: Demographic growth and increasing wealth in the towns meant we needed an efficient administrative system and well-supported imperial authority. Finely dressed noblemen who could quote the Classics and hold metaphysical conversations were living in a world far removed from reality. How could they give judicious advice to a sovereign who would never set foot outside the Forbidden City?

My reform received Little Phoenix’s approval; he had a taste for overturning customs. A decree was published ordering the ministers and provincial governors to recommend capable men to the Court, regardless to their origins. Soon the sovereign followed my advice and encouraged widespread competition for the mandarinate by honoring the final exam with his sacred presence.

Sitting behind the throne, surrounded by curtains of mauve gauze, I watched the scholars in contention for the title. They knelt before their writing desks where the paper, quills, and ink had been prepared for them by eunuchs; some shook with fear, and others struggled to keep their calm. I remembered my own anguish and feverish excitement when I was presented to the Eternal Ancestor for the first time. Unlike the previous sovereign who had not known how to choose among his ten thousand beauties, I vowed to myself never to ignore any man who might some day become a pillar of the Empire.

The Court finally opened its doors wide. A son of a Great Name would consider his nomination to be rightfully his whereas an ennobled Minor Name would show gratitude to his benefactor. The number of commoner-born ministers increased as the sovereign’s authority grew. Life was no longer fated. Education offered those of lowly birth an opportunity to rise. Now, through competition, thousands could aspire to a better lot.

THE STARS HAD foretold glory.

For four consecutive years, the sun, rain, and snow lavished Chinese soil with their generosity. From the heart of the imperial city to the four horizons, the old society perished, and a new world was born. Fields impregnated with the sweat of toiling peasants undulated voluptuously beneath the sky. Silks and brocades slithered off the looms, each a loving whisper from its weaver. Outlying lands became populated, and smoke from kitchen fires spiraled up into the sky in every direction. Every five lis another cockerel crowed, and another flock of sheep bleated. New barns were raised in the provinces to store the exceptional harvests; bolts of silk accumulated in the imperial storehouses. The price of rice fell to five sapeks per bushel.

Emperor Yang of the overthrown dynasty had had ostentatious tastes: His court and his dignitaries, following his example, had been carried away in a whirlwind of spending on pointless pleasures. Art and poetry in his time had predicted decline: Poets, calligraphers, and painters had been prisoners of a world full of refined form but devoid of content. Their affected sentiments and vapid pomposity betrayed their impotence. Under my husband’s reign, our Tang dynasty shook off this decadent style. A person’s energy was now more important than their aesthetic learning, and appearances reflected inner depths and breadth of spirit. By wearing dresses that were worn and darned, I imposed a more sober fashion on the Court, and by using calligraphy stripped of any superfluous frills, I communicated my preference for the essential to Court officials. I myself read the papers written by the candidates in imperial competitions, and I selected those whose writing impressed me. The mannerist poets disappeared from Court: Their superficial moaning was replaced by powerful verses with simple rhythms full of vibrant emotion.

Our empire was an earthly oasis, a grain-store for the heavens, and it became the envy of the many nomadic tribes whose constant travels were dictated by pasture and water sources. Since the dawn of time, the Chinese people had been living with this fear: stampeding archers appearing out of the desert and closing in on our villages, throwing our harvests and our women onto their horses’ backs, and leaving our fields devastated and our houses burned to the ground.

Unlike the Emperor Eternal Ancestor who had tried to keep us safe by conquering them and occupying their unworkable land from the steppes of Mongolia to the Gobi desert, I forced my husband to give these wild regions their autonomy and to appoint the local dignitaries as governors. The previous emperor had secured the obedience of these unstable regions with brutal bloodshed, but I bought it with the gold that my people gave willingly to avoid war. In a few years, the revolts had dwindled, but I knew that this period of calm was deceptive. The nomadic peoples had a predatory streak and a longing for freedom that no violence or gentleness would ever quell. My only fear was that they might unite against us. Thanks to the loose tongues of Chinese arms traders, I succeeded in maintaining the discord between the different tribes and in kindling hatred between their leaders. I prolonged the peace by alternating military repression and secret agreements.

When an empire embarks on a cycle of growth, it instills spirit and courage in its warriors. In the fifth year of Dazzling Prosperity, our vessels were called to the kingdom of Sinra, which was in danger once again; they vanquished the Paiktchei invaders and captured their royal family. Our generals offered the latter to Long Peace as victory trophies, and they prostrated themselves at the sovereign’s feet and begged for his clemency. Against the advice of our ministers, who wanted them to be executed, I took the initiative of recognizing the prince and heir as governor and sent him home with supplies to feed his people who were starving in the aftermath of war.

Now isolated, the kingdom of Korea lived its final hour of arrogance. My husband still hoped to have revenge for his father’s defeat. Exalted by their successive victories and carried by a sense of their own invincibility, our soldiers broke the defenses of a ferocious army, laid siege to the capital Ping yang, and forced the Korean court to recognize the suzerainty of our empire.

Emperor Yang of the previous dynasty had raised an army of a million soldiers against Korea three times, and three times his expeditions had failed. His dogged determination had exhausted the people and had cost him the crown. Emperor Eternal Ancestor, the conqueror blessed by the gods, had in turn failed to subjugate this little kingdom. He had come home sickened by his failure, and the regret had killed him. Our victory erased the dark pages of the past and drew out the thorn deep in the flesh of our history. The people saw our military successes as a celebration of their power, while my husband-who had suffered for being the son of a great sovereign-saw it as proof of his own power and virility. He who had never wanted to govern, he who loathed politics, was beginning to believe what I told him every day: His reign was still more glorious than his father’s.

Euphoria spread through the country and reached its apotheosis when dragons appeared in the southern provinces. The honorable sages of Antiquity said that these kings of the River and the Ocean only manifested themselves when peace and happiness reigned on Earth. The erudite scholars of the government’s astrology department interpreted this extraordinary phenomenon as a sign of approval from Heaven addressed to its Son. Our ministers felt they were living in the most enlightened Court of all time, and this filled them with pride and audacity. Several of them begged the sovereign to undertake a pilgrimage to Tai Mountain to make an oblation to Heaven and Earth.

According to the Book of Rites, this ancient celebration was carried out by emperors who had accomplished some extraordinary earthly feat. The Annals recorded that-after the Yellow Emperor and the mythical sovereigns-only two emperors had dared take the steep path up Tai Mountain and aspired to saluting the skies: the First Emperor, who had unified China, and the Martial Emperor of the Han dynasty, who had conquered the Barbarians and extended our territories as far as the setting sun.

During his reign, the Emperor Eternal Ancestor had intended to make this sacred pilgrimage, but the fragile state of his convalescing empire had forced him to abandon the plan. I begged my husband to carry out this unfulfilled wish. The ancients said that Tai was the sovereign of all mountains, that at its summit a door opened into the celestial world. I dreamed of grasping the mysterious power of mountains: As they reared up impetuously, the earth joined the sky.

My enthusiasm could not sweep aside Little Phoenix’s scruples; like every son crushed by the weight of a daunting inheritance, he was wracked with despondency and doubt when he had to surpass himself. He said that his crown had fallen to him by accident, and, as a simple mortal and a humble servant of the Empire, he wondered: Was he invested with the Celestial Will, was he worthy of being the one and only initiated person on Earth, was he the sublime sacrifice that the people made to the gods, and was he the Savior of the World? Up there in the mists and the eternal wind, would he not be dizzied by his own ascension and his solitude?

My eyes filled with tears.

“Yes, Majesty, you are this providential son. You have been chosen by the gods to incarnate goodness and generosity; you are the sovereign who will drive out poverty and suffering on Earth!”

The Emperor wept too. He was haunted by a painful childhood deprived of a mother’s love and a distressing adolescence shattered by scheming and fratricide. He could not free himself from the demons coiled within his heart and chose to huddle in the shadows of the Forbidden City.

Two years later, the Palace servants found the footprint of a griffon on the imperial steps to the Pavilion of Perfection. The Ancient Books described this sacred animal’s appearance on Earth as a harbinger of victory and peace. I saw this extraordinary event as a divine sign: I had to bear my husband up to the highest point in life, to the pinnacle of humanity.

The news sent a thrill of excitement through Court officials. I secretly encouraged learned courtiers to send petitions to the sovereign calling for him to climb Tai Mountain. Soon provincial governors, district administrators, chiefs of southern tribes, and western kings joined in unison to make the same request. The sovereign could not decline the invitation of the heavens or his people’s request. He was persuaded.

IN THE THIRD month of the fourth year of the Virtue of the Griffon, the Emperor transferred his Court to the eastern capital and arranged to set out with foreign kings and tribal chiefs from the world over. My august husband conducted an extraordinary deliberation during which ministers and scholars used the annals and the books of doctrine to establish the protocol for the ceremonies. They chose sacred melodies and dances and agreed on the list of participants and officiators. I planned the construction of the imperial route and the erection of altars; I renewed the armies’ ceremonial uniforms and took measures to prevent skirmishes along our borders and avoid a possible coup in the capital during the Emperor’s absence.

The ritual for the petition began in the tenth month. During a solemn audience the Supreme Son, the kings and great lords, followed by the Great Ministers, magistrates, advisers, Governor Delegates and foreign princes, all presented their official requests to the sovereign, asking him to make the ascent of the sacred mountain. After refusing three times to demonstrate his humility, my husband announced to the world that he had decided to undertake the pilgrimage. I immediately sent my congratulations to the sovereign, along with a letter in which I disputed the ancestral law that banned all women from the ritual ceremonies. I demanded the right to be the second officiator for the Sacrifice to the Earth.

“According to the rules of the Rites, two ministers will assist the sovereign during the Libation to the Earth. Man is the incarnation of the celestial breath and woman represents earthly powers. Eternity is the product of the transmutation born of the union between Heaven and Earth. How can it be that women should be excluded from the sacrifice which pays homage to her original element? During the ceremony, the shades of every empress will be invoked in prayers for fertility. Is it conceivable that the spirits of these august deceased should appear before strangers, all of them men? Without their honorable presence, the ritual would be incomplete, and no blessing would be granted. It is true that, in China ’s history, no woman has ever been admitted to the supreme Service of the Empire. Should we persist with a shortcoming of the Ancients to the detriment of the future?”

When my letter was read in public during the morning audience, it shocked the Court. I saw amazement and consternation on our ministers’ faces, but the sovereign found my arguments irrefutable: He expressed his approval, and the debate was closed. I would be the first woman to discover the mysteries of these celebrations.

On the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month, there was a chill northern wind, and the coral-colored sun hung in a crystal clear sky. Luoyang was deserted: The main avenue was covered in wet sand, and it gleamed like a golden sword laid down by the gods.

Men in yellow brocade marched slowly from the Southern Gate of the Forbidden City. They held signs with the words “Make way, keep clear” written on them in powdered gold, and they shouted to announce the beginning of the imperial procession.

There was a succession of parades for different dignitaries: first the Administrator from the district of Ten Thousand Years, the Governor of Long Peace, the Great Lord Overseer, and the Minister for Armies; then the Great Generals of the Golden Scepter of the Right and the Left. Both wore purple brocade, black breastplates with red lacing, and gold-plated helmets; they were mounted on horses with plaited manes and tails. They each carried a quiver of twenty-two arrows on their backs, and sabers hung from their leather belts in sheaths inlaid with precious stones. Behind them came an escort of four horsemen holding the lance adorned with yak hair as a symbol of victory.

Two lieutenants of the Golden Scepter headed up a square formation of forty-eight soldiers with scarves wound around their topknots, bronze breastplates, crimson trousers, quivers on their backs, and sabers on their belts. They were accompanied by twenty-four armored foot soldiers.

A group of standard bearers held their banners aloft in the wind, displaying the Crimson Bird, the god of the south.

Then came the procession of six carriages with roadmen marching before them. Each carriage was drawn by four horses and carried fourteen coachmen. The first measured the distance; the second established the direction; the third was decorated with white cranes; the fourth bore the flag of the phoenix; the fifth transported the Great Seer and dispelled evil; the sixth was driven by a soldier of the Golden Scepter armed with a crossbow and was covered in wild animal skins.

Then came two lieutenants of the Golden Scepter and their twelve mounted lancers and archers.

Next came the troop of imperial musicians: twelve drums, twelve golden kettledrums, 120 large drums, and 120 long horns. Small drums, a choir, pipes, and Tatar flutes were lined up in groups of twelve, while 112 flautists with larger flutes marched ahead of the two drums setting the rhythm. Then came the bamboo flutes, pipes, mouth organs, more Tatar flutes, and mouth organs made of peach wood. Then there were another twelve drums, twelve golden kettledrums, 112 small tambourines, and 112 bugles. Twelve more drums decorated with feathers headed up a square formation comprising a choir, pipes, and Tatar flutes. All of them began to play the solemn melody of the Emperor’s Departure.

Then came the parades of banners. The two Palace Overseers rode ahead of the Great Librarian and the Great Annalist. The sovereign carriages of Geomancy and of Measures were escorted by roadmen and followed by twelve drums and twelve gold drums.

Then came the procession of long-handled serrated sabers and behind them two rows of twenty-four imperial horses.

The flag of the Green Dragon, the god of the east, and of the White Tiger, the god of the west, swished apart to reveal two lieutenants leading two square formations of twenty-five cavalrymen, twenty of them lancers, four crossbow carriers, and one archer.

Following this was the procession of ministers and councilors from the Great Chancellery, the Great Secretariat, the Office of Supreme Affairs, and the Office of Overseers, all riding two by two.

Two generals headed up twelve divisions, totaling 1,536 men, arranged according to the color of their uniforms.

Two lieutenant-generals from the Imperial Guard commanding sixty soldiers from a division of reinforcements, two lieutenant-generals from the Cavalry in charge of fifty-six horsemen, and four lieutenants leading 102 foot soldiers made an impressive sight.

Then came the parade of the Jade route: the Jade carriage towed by thirty-two coachmen dressed in emerald green was accompanied by five more carriages, the General of One Thousand Bulls, and the two great generals of the Guard of the Left and the Right bearing imperial sabers; behind them were two imperial horses and two Gate Keepers holding long-handled sabers.

Then there were two soldiers bearing two banners of the Imperial Gate, escorted by four men on foot, all wearing tunics in imperial yellow. There were twenty-four sergeants from the regiments that guarded the Gates trotting between six rows of soldiers from the cavalry and reinforcements, and twelve rows from the regiments that guarded the Left and the Right.

Then followed long-handled fans made of feathers from venerated pheasants, borne by horsemen. Then the imperial litter with its eight bearers. Next there were four small fans, twelve fans of precious feathers, and two parasols covered in flowers. Four men marched ahead of the imperial vehicle which, having been designed for just such elaborate large-scale journeys, dripped with gold and precious stones and looked like a legendary reptile. It was made up of a sequence of platforms covered with giant palanquins and connected with hooks so that the whole train was articulated and flexible. It proudly displayed its two hundred coachmen in their black scarves, yellow tunics, mauve trousers, and purple belts and its countless horses harnessed in the most beautiful jewels in the Empire. As they reached the wide road covered in wet sand at the gates of the city, the reins were released: Every shaft and axle began to creak, and the train set off across the universe with a roar of thunder.

It was followed by the Palace eunuchs carrying the sovereign’s personal belongings and twenty-four horses from the imperial stables; by a procession of lance-bearers, feather fans, painted silk fans, and yellow parasols; and by a musical rearguard of hundreds of instruments.

The pavilion of the Black Warrior was first in the march-past of crimson banners, lances decorated with yak hair, and sticks topped with peacock feathers.

Then there was another yellow banner escorted by two Palace Overseers and their four assistants. The Rectangular carriage, with its two hundred coachmen, traveled ahead of the Small carriage with sixty coachmen, followed by imperial scribes and red, emerald green, yellow, white, and black banners carried by the eight soldiers from the Regiments of War of the Left and the Right.

After the procession of the Regiments of Vehemence came the parade of the Path of Gold, the Path of Ivory, the Path of Leather and the Path of Wood.

Followed by a procession in the following order four carriages celebrating agriculture; twelve magnificent vehicles drawn by oxen; the carriage of the Guard of the Seal; the carriage of the Golden Scepter; and the carriage of the Leopard’s Tail, a symbol of Majestic Fear; the two hundred guardsmen of Vehemence in breastplates, carrying shields and bearing weapons of war in their right hands; the forty-eight guards horses; the twenty-four standards of sacred animals with their armed escort; the procession of the Black Warrior, the god of the north, divided into armored troops in five colors; the Empress’s parade with her horsemen, footmen, officers, musicians, eunuchs, and ladies-in-waiting (their numbers all predetermined by the Rites); in strict hierarchical order, the processions of imperial concubines, each scrupulously respecting the prescribed number of long-handled fans, the color of her clothes, and the ornamentation of her carriages; the parade of the Supreme Son with his regiments and troops of musicians, followed by his wife’s parade; the processions of kings and those of their wives; the processions of the county kings and those of their wives; then the processions of princesses; the processions of imperial Great Lords and those of their wives; the processions of ministers and the processions of the Barbarian kings, tribal chiefs, and foreign ambassadors; at the back came the animals from the imperial Park: tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, stags, ostriches, and birds in aviaries, and the builders, cooks, wet nurses, scribes, tailors, silversmiths, cupbearers, doctors, pharmacists, grooms and horses, slaves, and beasts of burden.

For half a moon, more than one hundred thousand people came out of the town of Luoyang and set off on the imperial journey that traced one perfect straight line across the wintry plain. During the day the processions moved forward in a powerful river of brightly colored waves. At night the bivouacs and camp fires transformed the land into a starry sky. Never in the Annals of the dynasties had such a display of magnificence been recorded: An entire nation was migrating to the east, toward the ocean.

So we could join the sun!

HOW COULD ANYONE forget Tai Mountain with its snowy peaks challenging the skies? How can I describe its immaculate grandeur that reduced the imperial procession to a narrow black thread? Long after we left, the sights and sounds would still come back to me in the depths of the night: the mysterious ceremonies, the huge altars shaped like discs and squares, and the sacred dancers with their painted sleeves twirling between the smoke and mist. In my dreams I heard the mountain’s hoarse breath mingling with the chiming of sounding stones and bronze bells. I pictured the camp fires outside tents covered in sheets of gold, the flames flickering in antique basins, and the torches erected along the Sacred Path, an endless string of vertical lights. The sovereign’s request for prosperity had been engraved onto a golden blade, and at the top of the mountain, he sealed it behind a rock. There in the howling of the wind and the falling snow, I abandoned a part of my soul. Tai Mountain already belonged to the past, but its magic lived on. I had found something more precious than the celebrations: the loneliness of a former life, a fragment of shattered reminiscences, and a quest for a true origin.

Our pilgrimage turned into a roaming progression across the northeast of the Empire. When we reached Confucius’s homeland, the Emperor paid homage to the Sage. As the Court headed north to the birthplace of Lao-tzu, it made offerings to this founder of Taoist thought who was an ancestor of the imperial household. Our return journey was overrun by a radiant spring and its blossoming trees. In the Palace of the Joined Jade Disc, Little Phoenix and I wrote a commemorative hymn together. It was engraved onto a stela that would be erected at the top of Tai Mountain, among the celestial clouds. How long would that stone monument glittering with powdered gold withstand the cruel weather? After a thousand springs and autumns, after the snow had covered Earth ten thousand times, it would crumble into dust. The imperial route would be eroded away, the turmoil of one hundred thousand men marching jubilantly would dissipate. From Luoyang to Long Peace, the magnificence of the present was already being swallowed up in the vastness of the skies.

This sanctification had marked the high point of a cycle that would, inevitably, fall into decline. The ascent of Tai Mountain had given me strength, but it had left my husband somehow damaged. Like a warrior who has won his victory or a poet who has written his most inspired odes, he decided to renounce speech and actions for silence and contemplation.

Since my niece’s death, my husband no longer had a favorite. When he honored my bedchamber, it was to find an older sister’s consolation in my arms. As he aged, his distress took the form of fits of mysticism. His health was failing: As well as the frequent migraines, he suffered from arthritis and chronic dysentery. He spent more and more time confined to bed, and his absence became the norm for the outer court.

During the audience, he resigned himself to playing a symbolic role in the morning salutation and let me lead political debates from behind the gauze screen.

He dedicated himself to his passion for medicine, he built up a huge pharmacy in his palace and would go to sleep surrounded by the smell of bitter herbs. He actively oversaw the compiling of an encyclopaedia of medications and even went so far as to receive herbalists and sorcerers to discuss the beneficial effects of plants. His fascination for alchemy and immortality pills was long-held, and he became fervent in these obsessions. He had altars and magic furnaces built. Like the First Emperor and the Martial Emperor of the Han dynasty, he dreamed of transmuting the body into pure spirit. The red cinnabar that he took failed to cure his illnesses, but it changed his personality. He was sometimes sleepy and sometimes feverish, sometimes full of dreams and sometimes despondent; his days of dejection were punctuated by periods of hyperactivity.

He now slept with adolescents, both boys and girls. According to Taoist medicine, their virginal bodies could rebalance his vital fluids and restore his vigor. In his search for cures, he dragged the Court on journeys with him. New cities were built. Up in the mountains, our palaces snaked between the clouds. As he listened to monkeys howling, tigers roaring, and birds chattering, his earthly sufferings were washed away. He was dazzled by tall waterfalls tumbling from rocky peaks and by rainbows hovering over ancient trees. He bathed in hot springs and explored deep caves and underground rivers, already tasting the indolent existence of the gods.

The years were flying by. Our bodies aged, and our souls trembled. I watched, powerless, as my husband drifted in the opposite direction from myself. He became slow while I remained alert; he became fragile while I remained robust. He was frequently indisposed, and I had never even experienced a migraine. His voice was weak and breathless, mine loud and full of energy. The heir, Splendor, was only sixteen years old when he was designated as regent, so I had to take responsibility for all affairs of State. I would rise when it was still dark, come summer or winter, to receive the salutation of officials that was set at daybreak by the ancestral calendar. As my husband weakened, my authority increased further. Ten years earlier, the Palace intrigues and the complexity of imperial decisions had irked me and I had sometimes felt oppressed by the impotence of power. Now, the government that I had appointed was proving its competence and obedience, and I had acquired all the assurance of a woman on the threshold of maturity. The art of commanding became a martial drill, a religious sacrifice. I was both involved and detached as I manipulated the opinions, vanities, and ever-changing truths of men.

I floated above this sullied world like a drop of oil in water.

The sovereign’s mania for traveling upset the smooth running of the Court, which sought discipline and routine. The work undertaken to satisfy his whims required hundreds of thousands of laborers. Mountains were razed to the ground, and entire forests fed the furnaces used to fire imperial bricks. Precious woods, alabasters, granites, and exotic plants arrived down the rivers and were then transported on carts drawn by oxen and horses. Having imposed restrictions on the people for the sake of the economy, I was annoyed to see my husband setting such a poor example with his profligacy. As he lost interest in politics, he became increasingly fanatical about war: He went from one province to another, visiting garrisons, reveling in their grandiose military displays. The subtle balances I had maintained within the Empire were upset by his impulsive decisions and his obsession for interpreting any kind of attack as a personal affront to his pride-which he now confused with the dignity of China itself.

The deep discord between us triggered a violent argument: Irritated by the severity of my comments to him, the Emperor shook with rage from head to toe and accused me of crossing him with the sole intention of making him unhappy. When I saw the tears on his cheeks and the pain he was enduring from an excruciating headache, I regretted giving full vent to my feelings. How could I forbid an ailing man from proving his power with military deployments? How could I deprive an already weary soul of his futile but precious earthly pleasures? How could I stand in the way of a weakening man tasting the last joys of this life?

At forty two I had brought a daughter into the world; she was called Moon and was given the title of Princess of Eternal Peace. After the birth of the daughter I had so longed for, we had brought an end to our sexual relationship. The sovereign still occasionally showed some enthusiasm for me, but I knew that his doctors had forbidden him from spilling his vital sap, and I myself no longer had any right to desire. The tormented love that I had felt for the only man in my life disappeared, and long-held resentments resurfaced. A bitterness mingled with disappointment secretly overran my heart. I was sad to see him turn his back on a vast empire and a glorious heritage for the sake of his own well-being. I had hoped that, as time passed, he would become a great sovereign, but he had proved to be full of fears and laziness. There were still days when I was moved by his helpless charm and his affable kindness, but there were others when his capricious moods and his selfish longings infuriated me. I disguised my growing weariness with him by lavishing him with affection and attention: I tended to his aches and pains, found new distractions for him, and made sure that I could devote time, patience, and maternal love to him.

I was drowning in the waves of daily life. The caravans and imperial parades snaked through the four seasons between Heaven and Earth. Clothed in green, red, yellow, then white, the trees were resplendent and then withered; flowers exploded and then fell silent. Day after day, night after night, the role of Empress became a full-time occupation, and the discipline I had imposed on my existence wrapped itself around me. I myself had made the chains that bound me, and I headed toward death with open eyes and a dry heart.

An unusually hard drought followed by a famine ravaged the Central Plain. Overwhelmed by the suffering and sorrow of the people, I decided to take on the anger of the gods myself: Considering myself unworthy of my position, I offered my abdication.

MY HUSBAND REJECTED my request, and the Outer Court, in a state of panic, signed a petition begging me to remain on the throne. In the first year of the age of the Supreme Element, Little Phoenix took the title of Celestial Emperor offered by the Court, and during the course of the ceremony, he conferred on me the golden blade and seal of the Celestial Empress. The fine gauze behind the throne that screened my seat was removed, and in palaces where receptions were held, two thrones now stood side by side. Up in the heavens, the stars foretold a luminous future for me, and yet, I could see only shadows.

My husband and his ministers had capitulated. My power was no longer contested. I returned to work giving audiences and scrutinizing political reports, as a weaver returns to her loom. I no longer needed to fight to secure my position. For the first time in my life, I tasted the bitterness of boredom. But it was in one of these moments of darkness that Heaven heard my prayer: It sent me a sign, a gift, a sparkle, and my life was suddenly set alight.

The precocious literary talents of a little servant girl had met with high praise in a report written by the eunuch professors at the Institute of Letters in the Inner Court. I was intrigued by her family name: I discovered that she was the granddaughter of Shang Guan Yi, the poet chancellor who had plotted my dismissal. After the execution of male members of her clan, she had followed her mother in becoming an imperial slave. I had her poems sent to me. Her calligraphy revealed a firm but supple wrist, and her verses had the direct elegance of simple cadences. If I had not been informed, I would never have guessed that these words had been written by a fourteen-year-old girl.

The child was summoned to my palace. Her fringe concealed the tattoos borne by the condemned, and she replied to my questions with considerable aplomb. Her blend of shyness and an indefinable assurance gave her charm. Listening to her, I remembered the Gracious Wife and her soft voice. My stomach lurched: This child reminded me of that devastating passion. Her huge eyes seduced me. Her smile was defiant. I could hear her unspoken question: “Would you dare to love me?”

That very evening, trembling in every limb, Gentleness offered me her virginity, and I initiated her in the realms of pleasure. I had just turned fifty. I had had her father, her grandfather, and all her brothers executed. I was the jailor and torturer whose tyranny she worshipped. She was the pale flower I would transform into a resplendent peony.

Sensual delight colored my world. Love is insolent. Disguised as a page, Gentleness followed me day and night from my palace to the audience hall. When I sat, she remained standing; when I held secret meetings with ministers, she kept watch at the door; when I flew into a rage, her expression of silent amazement appeased me. When I ordered her to rest, she would retire to her room and write. Her poetry soothed me with its chaste descriptions of festivities and journeys. As I held her in my arms, I wondered when she would betray me and avenge her clan’s extermination. Hers was a perfume of innocence and poison. Shy caresses preceded her violent release, shaken by an unknown pain. She would scream, and she would cry.

Her sleeping face held the dangers that made me feel young and strong.

TIME DIES, AND time is born again, but men’s lives are a one-way journey. Imperial birthdays were excuses for sumptuous festivities. Fireworks and banquets were laid on for the people in every town-our imperial generosity being matched by our subjects’ dissolute celebrations for a transient pleasure. From one year to the next, our ages accumulated and weighed us down. From one year to the next, these birthdays changed and saw me mourning our long-buried youth. The sovereign’s inevitable deterioration gave real meaning to a vague concept: Death was lying in wait for us.

But it was the Supreme Son who succumbed to coughing and breathlessness. Splendor left us forever. The passing of his beloved heir affected the Celestial Emperor so profoundly that it provoked chest pains. United with my husband in grief and anguish, I forgot my resentments. Little Phoenix clung to me more than ever, as the shipwrecked cling to a piece of flotsam. And the fear of losing him paralyzed me more than ever. The memory of Father’s death, which had been such a brutal loss, came back to haunt me. I could clearly remember the utter dejection of those childhood days. Would I have the strength to survive another such onslaught? Little Phoenix and I had been living as prisoners of the Forbidden City for forty years now. His very presence was the air I breathed; he was the balancing pole to my tightrope-walking soul. How would I cope with the emptiness and loneliness when he joined the gods and embraced freedom?

Medicine, prayer, and magic services secretly arranged in monasteries sustained the Emperor but did not cure him. There were more and more bad omens. I had just announced a pilgrimage to Mount Song for another blessing from Heaven, but a Tibetan attack forced me to abandon the expedition. During the Eternal Ancestor’s reign, the Court had planned to build a Temple of Clarity dedicated to the sacred religions, as a symbol of union between imperial power and the will of Heaven. The idea had matured, and now the architects’ plans were ready, but an incident ruffled the serenity of the proceedings and delayed this building project that had been wanted for so long. Wisdom, my second son, tried to usurp the throne. He was stripped of his title as heir and driven from the Capital.

There was a succession of terrible natural catastrophes. After a winter that yielded no snow, cereal production dropped in the north and the region near Luoyang declared penury. Later a very wet summer saw the Yellow River burst its banks, and the floods were followed by an epidemic that killed tens of thousands of horses and cows. The following year, clouds of locusts descended on the fields, and an earthquake rocked both capitals. The Ancients said that when the natural elements were unsettled in this way, great misfortune would befall the Empire. They even specified that if, amid all this fury, the Earth began to tremble, Heaven was announcing the death of an eminent man.

Exploiting the difficulties our empire was suffering, the Turks rose up against us. Negotiations with them failed, and I had to send imperial troops to put down the rebellion with bloodshed. I may have maintained the country’s stability by force of arms, but in the Inner Palace, I was completely disarmed by just one man’s illnesses.

In the residential city of the Celestial Oblation, my husband’s body doubled in size, and violent spells of dizziness and headaches pinned him to his bed. He lay behind the curtains moaning while a crowd of doctors thronged round him. The Supreme Son and the Great Ministers knelt beside him. It was their duty to approve prescriptions and to taste each remedy. I dismissed all these people whose agitated bustling was only weakening my husband. I set up my own bed and my writing table in his palace of rest. With one hand I countersigned political decisions, and with the other, I held the sovereign’s limp, clammy hand. He was soothed by my presence; drinking in my strength, he seemed to improve and asked for food.

I spoon-fed him some soup; thirty years earlier, he had been the one who did this for me. I remembered his distraught face full of love, his tentative voice asking me to be his empress. Tears clouded my eyes: if only I could die and he could be resuscitated!

But the gods remained deaf to my pleas. Once again Little Phoenix would betray my hopes. One evening when he had been bled from his head, his pains disappeared, his eyes regained their sight, and he smiled at me.

“Sovereign Father appeared to me in a dream,” he murmured. “He invited me to follow him, and I started to float through a sea of clouds. Father led me through the fog and raised his arm to point to the horizon. The mists dispersed to reveal a golden palace surrounded by light, and flying round it were phoenixes with wings in nine colors. I realized that this was the celestial residence of Sovereign Father, Empress Mother, and my beloved sister, Little Bull. Music began to play, an extraordinary tinkling sound. A procession of immortals came from far away to greet me. And I decided to come back to Earth to tell you that I’m leaving!”

Tears streamed over my face.

“Empress,” the sovereign continued, “my time has been accounted for. What a shame the heir is not ready to reign-this one concern means I cannot leave in peace.”

“Your Majesty tortures himself in vain,” I cried. “He will soon be well again. Next year he will undertake the pilgrimage to Mount Song, and Heaven will bless him and grant him the secret of immortality.”

“I’m so tired of living in pain. The apparition of Sovereign Father has calmed my fears. Death is nothing. It is abandoning a rotting, worthless body; it is a soul ascending. The peak of the sacred mountain, which is the highest most point to the living, will be nothing but a blade of grass when I am in the heavens. Be happy-I am to be delivered!”

I was silenced by Little Phoenix’s words. It was too late to hold back a man who had laid eyes on the marvels of the afterlife. In his eyes all the riches and delights of this world were now mere filth and dust.

“Majesty,” I said despairingly, “allow me to follow you; I want to continue serving you.”

“Heavenlight, I have been a very ordinary sovereign. My only good quality has been that I have succeeded in surrounding myself with people more able than me. I have never liked being on the throne or giving commands. But I was able to make a great empress of you. If I had to enumerate the achievements of my time on Earth, I would say that you were my masterpiece. Before we are temporarily parted-because, later, you will come to join me-I wanted to thank you for your patience, for the sacrifices you have made, for risking your own life to give me heirs. Forgive me if I caused you suffering.”

I was overwhelmed by the thoughts milling in my mind. I was about to reply when the sovereign interrupted me, his voice reduced to a feeble hiss: “Heavenlight, your hour has not yet come. You must stay here to watch over the dynasty. The heir is too young; when I die, he will not know how to run an empire weakened by natural disasters and uprisings. I have faith in your experience. You will know how to master the situation and restore order and stability to the world. Heavenlight, look after yourself; I am trusting you with my people and my empire.” His eyes closed, and I cried: “Little Phoenix, don’t abandon me!” I thought I saw a mischievous smile on his face as he whispered almost inaudibly: “I’ve always wanted to die before you, did you know that?”

THE COURT HASTILY left the Palace of Celestial Oblations. The Celestial Emperor lay on his bed in a carriage drawn by two hundred coachmen. The imperial road to the eastern capital would be the route he took toward his death. To reach the world of clouds and eternal ease, my husband endured his final torment. I stayed beside him, grimly fascinated by the terrifying process of dematerialization that would render him immortal: his skin had to be burned of its filth until only purity and incandescence were left. The soul that had been called up by the gods had to break free from the flesh that housed it to fly up to the heavens.

At Luoyang, border troubles forced me to leave the dying sovereign’s side to hold audiences alongside the heir regent. For the first time I was inattentive, distracted, listening out for messengers coming to bring me news of his death. Human affairs seemed so futile to me now that I had seen the splendors of another world through my husband’s agony. When the meeting was over, I hurried back to the Inner Palace and went back to my prayers at Little Phoenix’s bedside. It was now he, a dying man, who gave me strength and warmth and illuminated my entire existence.

On the third night of the twelfth moon in the second year of Eternal Purity, the astrologers were burning tortoise scales, and they announced the word “severing.” The following morning the Celestial Emperor woke and found that his pains had disappeared. He spoke clearly, and he himself wanted to announce the Great Remission and the Changing of the Era to the name the Magnificent Path. Doctors and eunuchs managed to lift him from his bed and to wrap him in fur-lined tunics. A litter carried him through the narrow passageways of the Forbidden City and took him to the pavilion at the top of the Gate of Celestial Law.

On the far side of the moat, beyond the square formations of cavalry and foot soldiers, were the common people who had come from the four corners of the city. They prostrated themselves before him. Morning snow had covered the roofs of the eastern capital; temples, bell-towers, and pagodas looked alike in the flurrying greyness, and princely pavilions could hardly be distinguished from merchant’s houses and more humble dwellings.

For a moment the Celestial Emperor’s gaze lingered on the horizon to the west and focused through the fog and falling snow on Long Peace, his native town. Drums, bells, and gongs began to sound. The sovereign could not read his decree because the jubilant people were already crying “Long live the Emperor!”

That afternoon he summoned ministers; the Supreme Son; the King of Yu, Sun; and Moon, the Princess of Eternal Peace to his bedside. He dictated his will: “… seven days will be sufficient for the funeral ceremonies; the heir will ascend to the throne in the presence of the coffin; the tomb and the funeral city will be built in sober style; the government will consult the Celestial Empress on important military and political matters.”

Early in the evening, my husband woke feeling very short of breath. He asked for an anaesthetizing drug, and, before sinking back into sleep, he called me over to his bed and took my hand.

Night fell, but I dared not move. As I held his hand in mine, I was his last link with the world of the living. There in the flickering candlelight, with his hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and dry lips, he already looked like a pallid corpse. A cold current suddenly ran through the palm of my hand, and I heard muted music, a tinkling of crystal, silver bells and jade flutes.

Little Phoenix ’s face relaxed. Smoothed of their suffering, his motionless features had all the elegance of sculpted marble and the beauty of an enigmatic mask. His half-open eyes continued to watch the gods as they gathered invisibly around him. His lips were drawn out to the corners of his mouth, already in an expression of rapture.

I waited for the divine music to fade before rising to my feet. Eunuchs opened the doors of the palace wide. In the lantern light, I saw no hint of white snow in the square courtyard, so full was it of princes and ministers prostrating themselves on the ground. Town criers chorused the words I murmured: “The Emperor of China has risen up to Heaven. The greatest empire in the world has been orphaned.”

The people dressed themselves in the white of mourning. Music, laughter, and banquets vanished from every household. For seven days the Court carried out the simplified version of the twenty-seven ceremonies for putting the body in its coffin. For seven days the city of Luoyang rang to the sound of lamentations, esoteric prayers, and Buddhist recitations. For seven days incense dispersed from ritual basins and columns of gray smoke haunted the sky.

In his will my celestial husband had not specified where his tomb should be built. But as he stood at the top of the Gate of Celestial Law, his gaze had led me to understand that he wanted to return to his birthplace. Against the advice of ministers who wanted to bury him close to Luoyang, I rushed a delegation to Long Peace: Ministers of Human Affairs, engineers from the Department of Major Works, and experts in geomancy from the Funerals Department.

This commission sent messengers back to me with sketches and descriptions of the sites they had inspected. On my very first reading, I was drawn to Liang Mountain to the northeast of Long Peace, a site whose astral position corresponded to the number one and to the element of the heavens. It backed onto a chain of lush green hills and, on its eastern side, looked out over the Mountain of Nine Horses where the Eternal Ancestor was buried, while on its western side it quenched its thirst in the River Wu, a limpid source that barred the route to any demons from the Shades. The plain around the River Wei came and prostrated itself before the mountain’s southerly face that was defended by two hills, the towers of celestial archers.

A second delegation went to join the first, and they confirmed the prognosis: The mists that rose up from the vegetation on Liang Mountain were the breath of the dragon. It dominated this earthly world and drew on the energies of the sky. It would be a glorious site for a tomb and a guarantee for the Empire’s eternal prosperity. I summoned the Great Astrologer Li Chun Feng to my palace and asked him to proceed with the verification. As I would join my husband later, once I was dead, the time and place of our births were converted into numbers and added to those of our children and our ancestors, then divided between the Five Elements, and combined with the twenty-four astral houses and the twelve terrestrial branches. The mathematical calculations lasted three days and three nights, and the results proved to be in agreement with the ideal suggested by the geomancy experts.

The work started as soon the thaw began. Every evening my soul flew westward to a subterranean palace that was growing in the belly of Liang Mountain. The dark, dank galleries grew longer, making their way slowly and painfully to the center of the Earth. The imperial chamber was positioned in the unfathomable depths of life, in the heart of a labyrinth of corridors set with trap doors, arrows and poisons to steer looters toward the false tombs. Frescoes were drawn: Gold, silver, ochre, violet, faces, bodies, and gowns appeared along the whitewashed corridors. I ordered a fresco representing the imperial parade with its thousands and thousands of men and horses. Along the way to the celestial kingdom, even my sister and my niece found their places behind my retinue.

Ramparts were built around the mountain-tomb. A scale model of Long Peace was built district by district with, right in the centre, a sacred citadel dedicated to religion and offerings. The sovereign’s personal bed clothes were transported to a palace identical to the one he had occupied in his lifetime, recreated at the top of the mountain. All along the Divine Way, the central axis of the funeral town, I positioned statues of lions, winged horses, and ministers accompanied by our sixty-one vassal kings.

I disobeyed the ancestral tradition of erecting a commemorative stela for a sovereign, and I built a granite monument on which craftsmen engraved an epitaph of eight thousand characters, a long poem in which I spoke of my celestial husband’s life and glorious reign.

On the fifteenth day of the fifth month, the imperial procession set off for the west, led by my son, Future. All along the way, dignitaries, merchants, craftsmen, and peasants set up altars. There was an endless succession of paper houses decorated with gold leaf. White flags, ribbons of hemp, and funeral money fluttered in the wind and blotted out the sky.

The horses had no plumes, and princesses went without their jewels. The musicians played funeral airs as they walked. My husband’s hearse, covered in a white sheet and drawn by one thousand soldiers in mourning, moved away in a cloud of dust.

I ordered the annalists to compose the Book of Events, depicting his reign, transcribing his audiences and conversations, narrating his hunting expeditions, and describing how he harangued his warriors. For posterity, they drew up the portrait of a great sovereign.

I closed the residential palaces-the Palace of Ten thousand Sources, the Palace of the Fragrant Cinnamon Tree, and the Palace of Celestial Offerings-they were only so many wonders, so many painful memories, and worthless luxuries.

Who had Little Phoenix been? Eternity would not have been long enough for me to find an answer. He was the motionless core of a vast world, staying still while life spun slowly round him. When I thought I had grasped the flame within him, seen into it, possessed it, it was already far away, glimmering, extinguished.