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.
The poetess Xu was having difficulty standing up to the combined forces of her rivals. Following her miscarriage, the Delicate Concubine had withdrawn from the Emperor’s entourage and now led a sad and solitary life. The Gracious Wife was still struggling valiantly to maintain the sovereign’s favor. I was now half a head taller than the woman who had introduced me to the delights and horrors of love. Her eyes had lost their languid mistiness, and her leaden face exhaled an air of repeated debauchery. Her sugary words were sibilant nonsense. I could not believe that I had been enslaved to this monster.
But I had learned to play games the way women do. So as not to have her as an enemy, I flattered her with well-placed lies. My promises kept her desires at bay, and I no longer abandoned myself to her. First love is a crossing to another world.
I sometimes met Little Phoenix, who came to offer his greetings. He would manage to shake off the following of eunuchs and slip away with me behind a column or a tree. He would give me secret presents bought at peasant fairs: a wooden comb, a terracotta doll, a little horse made of sugar. These very ordinary trinkets were priceless in our Inner City. In exchange for his presents, he insisted that I listen to him describe his inextricable affairs with his young mistresses and I give him my advice. I watched my king growing up with a heavy heart. He was no longer the fevered adolescent who dreamed of magnificent battles against the Barbarians. His adult life was a succession of female conquests in which any feeling of glory disappeared the day after the victory. Still dissatisfied in his search for an ideal woman, he abandoned himself wholeheartedly to pointless suffering and transient happiness.
He too was a prisoner of the forced inactivity of the imperial court; was there a better drug for him to find than love?
One afternoon Little Phoenix appeared at the entrance to the manege where I was schooling a horse. He called for his usual mount and galloped over to me.
Still far away, he called: “Did you know that the King of Qi, the son of Wife Yin, has led a revolt against Sovereign Father? He’s killed the Governor Delegate of his province-kingdom and proclaimed himself Emperor. Sovereign Father is furious. His ministers have approved an immediate repression. The armies of nine counties are marching toward the rebel cities!”
When he was closer to me, I could see tears on his cheeks.
“This morning at the Emperor’s audience, my elder brother, Supreme Son, and my second brother, the King of Wei, each accused the other of being allied to the insurgent. I thought they were going to fight before the sovereign. Heavenlight, my brothers are going mad!”
The Supreme Son and the King of Wei, who was second in line to the throne, were both born of the Empress of Learning and Virtue, and their rivalry in the Imperial City went back to their childhood. As the Emperor grew older, he was losing patience with the eldest, who preferred debauchery to study, and his affection was turning to the younger son who seemed more serious and intelligent. Seeing his title threatened, the heir became even more bullish and vindictive. As he drew close to his goal, the King of Wei became increasingly nervous and vapid. Their hatred for each other spread throughout the Court, and partisan clans had formed. Both camps slandered each other before the sovereign who, distressed by the conflict, could not reach a decision. The heir wanted his younger brother dead to secure his position; the King of Wei cursed his elder brother who held a place he did not deserve. Each of them secretly resented the sovereign for defending his adversary, and each of them was quite capable of seizing the throne by launching a coup. Princes turning to fratricide and usurping thrones was the curse of our dynasty!
Little Phoenix interrupted my thoughts: “After the audience, the heir’s carriage held mine up as we turned a corner. He demanded that I speak ill of his enemy in front of Father. Later, I received a visit from the King of Wei in my palace. ”Neutrality is a sign of weakness punishable by death,“ he told me. What should I do? How can I take either part? They are both guilty of sowing the seeds of unrest in the Palace. One of them is colluding with the rebels and has betrayed us. Heaven-light, I don’t want to be involved with any plotting and scheming! I’m afraid!”
I tried to reassure him: “Your uncle the Great Chancellor Wu Ji, the brother of the honorable late Empress, has the sovereign’s ear. In the past, he took his Majesty’s part when he confronted his brothers; today he best understands the tragedy of the situation. The sovereign is too closely involved to act, but I know that he has instructed Lord Wu Ji to conduct a secret enquiry. Soon we shall know the truth. Your brothers are trying to frighten you. They are the ones who are dying of fear! Don’t trouble yourself; no one will have time to do you harm.”
The atmosphere at the Palace of Precious Dew darkened. The Emperor was sullen and silent; he refused his favorite entry to his palace and condemned his servants to beatings for the least oversight. At night he would call for a slave, a little sweeping girl he had discovered one day, and this provoked acute indignation amongst the Court ladies.
The rebel province was overcome by the imperial army’s attack. The King of Qi was brought to the Capital in chains. A decree from the sovereign stripped him of his position, his title, and his nobility. Now deposed, reduced to the state of commoner and imprisoned, he received the order to commit suicide.
The enquiry conducted by Wu Ji revealed a conspiracy against the sovereign led by the heir and supported by members of the imperial family and high dignitaries. In prison the Supreme Son confessed his crimes. He lost his title and the right to wear the insignia of nobility. His eldest son was stripped of the mandate of Imperial Grandson. Both were exiled. Their chief accomplices were the King of Han, who was the sovereign’s brother; the prince consort Dou He, whose father had been one of the twenty-four veterans who founded the dynasty; the son of the High Princess of Vastness Zhao Jie; the Minister for Human Affairs; and Ho Jiun Ji, the great victor of the Gaochang War. All of them were imprisoned and had to wait until the autumn for their capital punishment. Except for the imperial princesses, the female members of their families became slaves in the Side Court. Their male descendants were granted the Emperor’s clemency; he did not want to see any more heads severed. They were whipped and banished to the south of the Mountain of the Extreme.