Out in the courtyard you are lying on the ground. Don’t go near her! warns a vengeful voice in my head. Death is what she deserves! But my three-inch bound feet shuffle nearer and I crouch to peer at you. Your skin is pale as ice and your stillness that of a corpse. Are you sleeping or are you dead? Whereas my breath emerges in thick white puffs, yours isn’t visible. You look so much like my eldest, Lily, I can’t bear it. Leave her! warns the voice. Remember how sadistically she carved up your breasts! But I can’t leave you. My bandaged wounds in agony, I heave you into my arms and carry you into my chamber. How can I let you die, when you look so much like my own child?
I lay your frozen body on my bed and you revive in the warmth of the briquette stove. Your blood thaws and circulates again, flowing back to your cheeks. You wake, blinking with eyes that wonder, Where am I? then shine with gratitude as they meet mine. Knowing you have not had any water for three days, I pour a glass from my carafe. Now throw her out! I think as you sip feebly at the water. Bamboo is a frozen snake brought in from the cold. Now recovered, she will sink in her fangs! But you are so sickly I daren’t send you back into the bitterly cold night. I cover you with my goose-feather quilt, cursing my sentimental heart.
I drowse until the hour before dawn, when you wake me by loosening my foot bindings to rub my hump-backed arches and toe-claws. At the deft touch of your hands, that cruel mistress lust stirs within and I don’t resist as your lips flutter like moth wings against my legs and thighs. You pilgrimage to my sacred place and worship there, the lapping waves of pleasure rising to a crescendo and my shuddering release.
The drum bangs to signal dawn. The sun rises over the Forbidden City and the fearful symmetry of courtyards and palaces within. Your weary head on the pillow, you murmur that you love me. That you loved me before we even met. Your eyelids droop shut and I stroke your raven’s tresses back from your inauspicious widow’s peak. I am tranquil as I watch you slumber. The fury I was certain would seethe unto the grave is gone.
How did my defences fall so swiftly? I wonder. You came for my forgiveness, and how willingly I gave it away.
X
In the Palace of Sleeping Cicada fifteen aspiring murderesses gather in a sewing circle, embroidering silken slippers for our broken, mutilated hooves. Steam rises from our cups of aromatic tea. Lotus blossoms and golden peonies bloom from our needles and thread. More sinister things bloom from our tongues and mouths. How will His Majesty die? By poison or the dagger? Or, if time kindly permits, by the Death by a Thousand Cuts?
Out in the Garden of Dispossessed Favourites bronze bells are tolling in the fitful breeze. There’s a knock on the door of the Palace of Sleeping Cicada and our sixteenth sister, Concubine Jasmine, rushes in. Her eyes are shining bright and her tongue is taut as an archer’s bow drawn to fire arrows of speech.
‘My beloved sisters! Our time has come! Tonight we are summoned to the Leopard Room. Tonight the reign of the Emperor Jiajing will end!’
Fifteen wagging tongues are stilled. Fifteen needles freeze mid-stitch. Fifteen hearts leap up into throats. ‘How?’ we gasp. Concubine Jasmine lowers herself on to the kang in a perfumed cloud of silk. Kingfisher feathers of silver filigree tremble in her hair.
‘Today I had the honour of luncheon with His Majesty in the Belvedere of Ancient Catalpa.’
Concubine Jasmine piously widens her eyes and reverentially bleats, ‘O Supreme Ruler! O Lord of Mankind and all under Heaven! There is no greater honour than to be invited to dine with His Majesty today! Well. . as His Majesty feasted on a dish of stewed meat dumplings, I crawled under the table, lifted up the imperial robes and feasted on His Majesty’s dumplings. At first he was outraged. . not to mention flustered, in front of the one hundred serving eunuchs!’
Fifteen aspiring murderesses titter to imagine the horror of the pallorous castrati.
‘But he soon surrendered with moans of pleasure and, by the time I had imbibed His Majesty’s seed, his luncheon had cooled on his plate. Then, whilst he was in an agreeable mood, I suggested a rendezvous in the Leopard Room tonight. I begged permission to choose his bedmates, promising His Majesty seductresses versed in the erotic arts who will send him to Heaven on clouds of transcendent bliss. Emperor Jiajing consented and waved me away, and I rushed at once to the Bureau of the Affairs of the Bedchamber and named our sixteen names. Tonight we will each be summoned to the Leopard Room! Tonight the Jiajing reign will end!’
Our sewing circle of fifteen concubines is effusive in its praise.
‘Oh how brave you are, Concubine Jasmine!’
‘How audacious! How sly and cunning!’
‘Our hearts are brimming with admiration, truly they are!’
‘Beloved sisters,’ Concubine Jasmine says warmly, ‘it was our sisterhood that lent me the courage and the strength.’
Then silence descends upon the Palace of Sleeping Cicada. Our regicidal fantasy is about to be fulfilled, but His Majesty’s death is our death too, and fear and sorrow drum loudly in our chests. Concubine Emerald wrings her hands in her lap and whispers, ‘Beloved sisters, I must confess that I am afraid. .’
‘Afraid of what?’
I speak before I know I am speaking, with a scathing that can’t be reined in: ‘Of death? Isn’t life as a harem slave already a waking death? Punished for the sin of pulchritude, we are prisoners here in this gilded cage, subject to the tyrant’s every sadistic whim! My sisters, we died long ago. Each of us died the moment we were borne by palanquin through the Forbidden City’s western gates.’
Concubine Jasmine reaches and clasps both of Concubine Emerald’s hands in hers. ‘We will be duly rewarded in Heaven for protecting our daughters and taking revenge on him for our murdered ancestresses,’ she says. ‘The Gods approve of our plot to end his tyrannical reign. The Gods have revoked the Mandate of Heaven and tonight we act in their stead. .’
A pause. A muffled cough from the periphery of the chamber. Embroidery hoops tumble from laps as concubines flutter up like birds startled by a gunpowder shot.
‘Who? Where?’
‘An intruder! A spy!’
‘Under the lid of the tea chest!
Concubine Moonbeam bounds over to the teakwood chest and throws the dragon-engraved lid open on creaking hinges. A colourful tumult of finely woven robes are flung through the air as she rummages for the interloper, whom she hauls up by her braids.
‘Concubine Bamboo!’ the sewing circle hiss.
You wince in pain as Concubine Moonbeam drags you to the centre of the Palace of Sleeping Cicada by your plaits. Sixteen elder sisters gather around you, and you cower beneath sixteen pairs of glaring eyes.
‘Who sent you?’ Concubine Melodious Songbird demands.
‘Why are you spying on us?’
Your innocent eyes brim with tears and you lisp childishly, ‘I was playing hide and seek with the other novice concubines and. .’
Concubine Jasmine laughs incredulously, then slaps you hard across the cheek. ‘Your lies insult us. Speak the truth!’
Your cheek reddens with the mark of her hand. Recognizing that your elder sisters won’t be duped, you start again,
‘Honourable Elder Sisters, I beg you to forgive my trespassing. I suspected that Concubine Swallow was part of a secret plot and, fearing for her safety, I hid in the tea chest to learn what it was. Now that I know, I swear on my ancestors’ graves to keep your secret.’ You narrow your eyes with enmity. ‘I hate the Emperor of Knives as much as you do, and will rejoice with the rest of the Celestial Kingdom to see him dead.’