Shan Sa - Empress

“I give you my permission, Talented One. But do not tell anyone.”

The gynaeceum had produced fourteen sons and twenty daughters for the Emperor. Two of the boys had died very young. In keeping with Court custom-ever wary of pretenders to the throne-the remaining princes were required to leave the Inner Palace as soon as they received the royal seal, and they went to live in their official residences in the noble district of Long Peace. But Little Phoenix and Little Bull were the children of the Empress of Learning and Virtue. Her untimely death had robbed them of the only protection they had in the Forbidden City. United in their grief, they had become inseparable. The emperor had taken pity on them and had made a special decree allowing the young king to prolong his stay in the Inner Court.

I did not know what had led the other to me, and I could not explain how this friendship began, but it would become a pact of life and death. The princess was nine, the prince eleven, and I was fourteen. They were fascinated by my strength and saw me as an idol, a protector. I sympathized with their bereavement, which reminded me of my own. I missed Little Sister. I would give my time and my patience to this princess to appease the sorrow.

I shared a love of horses and archery with Little Phoenix. Together we plotted the routes of his future expeditions across geographical maps. Through him I lived my dream of being a man, of being strong and free. In time, this weakling who strove to look so aloof and proud admitted to me how alone and afraid he felt. His elder brothers had left the Forbidden City. The eldest, who was his full brother, was ensconced in his Eastern Palace playing the part of an authoritarian Supreme Son. He would not tolerate being outshone by his younger brothers. The favorites in the gynaeceum tried their best to distance Little Phoenix from the sovereign, who was so busy with affairs of state that months could go by without his speaking to the boy. Little Phoenix was shy and self-effacing. He had to settle for living in an imaginary world where he now included me in his great conquests overseas.

Puberty is a fleeting moment of beauty. When Little Phoenix was fourteen, he lifted his fringe from his forehead and tied his hair in a topknot. After his coming of age ceremony, the ministers pointed out to the sovereign that it was no longer suitable to keep this man in his gynaeceum. Little Phoenix left us and went to live in his royal residence. A few months later, he arrived at the Outer Court in the robes of an imperial official and began taking his part in political life. The Great High Princess of Shared Peace arranged his betrothal to one of her granddaughters, a young lady of high birth from the Wang clan in the province of Bing, whose grandfather had been a Great Minister in the Wei dynasty of the west and whose uncle had recently married a County Princess.

After her beloved brother left, Little Bull was a broken creature. My young princess was wasting away, and I was tormented by her cruel question: “Why does human life have to mean constant separation?” The day the king was married, Little Bull shut herself in her room and spoke to no one. She weakened under the weight of her melancholy. As the winter began, she succumbed to a violent fever; three days later, she escaped to the heavens.

I saw the king again when her body was ceremonially placed in her coffin. He had grown: Beneath the white linen tunic, it was now a man who wept in sorrow. He appeared at the far end of a path even though I was trying to avoid him. His voice now had the deep resonance of an adult’s.

“I killed her,” he said, stamping his feet in anguish. “I killed her!”

We were both guilty; we had both been loved. I forgot propriety and cried with him in the whistling wind.

The snow of my eighteenth year fell around us and covered the ground.

BEYOND THE NORTHERN Gate, the Imperial Park -the vastest domain under the heavens-stretched out to the west, its forests teeming with game and its rivers rich in fish. In the autumn, when the sun-scorched leaves turned to ochre, the ground reverberated to the sound of horns and drums, making dogs bark and tamed leopards roar. Horsemen bearing banners and standards appeared like the furious clouds of a rainstorm. The banners would part, and the emperor would appear beneath his yellow satin parasol, astride his favorite mount, drawing back his bow adorned with gold carvings. When he galloped like this, his solid body seemed to lose its weightiness and become lighter. The Master of the World was supple and agile; he was once again the invincible hero who had subjugated the Empire by force of arms.

Banquets were held on the banks of the river. Whole boars and stags were spit-roasted, and bets were taken on the Turkish generals as they wrestled, stripped to the waist and oiled with animal fat. Kings and ministers took part in Tatar-style dancing, and the Emperor deigned to beat out the rhythm on a tambourine.

On that particular day, drunk and in high spirits, His Majesty called for the horse called Winged Lion, which had been a gift from the King of the West. Generals and captains came forward in turn, each hoping to drink from the cup promised by the sovereign to whoever could master this huge beast with the golden mane. Drums rolled, and the enraged Winged Lion snorted and bucked, arching his back and launching himself into a full gallop only to stop dead in his tracks, throwing his rider to the ground.

Cries of amazement and disappointment filled the air. Inflamed by this cruel game, the Emperor ordered for his sleeves to be rolled up and prepared to take up the challenge. The Great Ministers threw themselves to their knees:

“His Majesty must take care of his divine self.”

“It is not acceptable for the sovereign to put his life in danger.”

“The sages would condemn such foolhardiness.”

“Majesty, do not forget your responsibilities to the State!”

Unsure how to proceed, the Emperor tapped his foot on the ground and looked around him.

“Well, is there no one who can master this horse?”

Hearing these words, I stepped forward and prostrated myself on the ground.

“Your servant requests permission to try her luck!”

For the first time, the sovereign turned his eye on me. Amazed and amused, he asked: “My generals were unable to control this beast. Young girl, are you not afraid to die beneath my mount’s flailing hooves?”

I replied more calmly than I would have believed possible: “Majesty, creatures of violence must be mastered with violence. I shall make so bold as to ask for three tools: a whip, a hammer, and a dagger. First, I shall give him a lesson with the whip. If he disobeys me, I shall blow him on the head with the hammer. If he still rebels, I shall slit his throat.”

The Emperor roared with laughter. He praised my attitude and told the Supreme Son that it was an excellent metaphor for the strategy he applied to the Tatar people. The very next day he summoned me to serve in his inner palace. Dressed in man’s robes, with my tablet and ink pot attached to my belt and my calligraphy brush through my topknot, I joined the ranks of the secretaries.

THE PALACE OF Precious Dew was displaying its beds of irises and orchids. With its ceilings as high as the vault of the heavens, its curtains of pearls, its screens inscribed with calligraphy, and its succession of sinuous galleries, it was a labyrinth of intrigue. Its countless doors opened onto a little corner of sky, a sloping roof, a window in the shape of a crescent moon, a rockery smothered in the twisted limbs of a wisteria or an emerald pond around which white cranes flitted. Each of these ingenious touches meant that every guest felt that the Son of Heaven favored him alone.

From my position behind screens of gauze and sliding doors, I could watch the endless streams of jealous concubines and princes hoping to find recognition. Taoist monks and doctors argued over the pile of immortality. When ministers and generals appeared and disappeared at the entrance to secret passageways, I knew that, somewhere in the Empire, rebel heads would roll.