The Incarnations (26 page)

‘We have news of a tragedy that occurred last week,’ continues Concubine Autumn Rains. ‘Imperial Consorts Tranquillity, Heavenly Orchid, Bamboo and Joyous Abundance were summoned by Emperor Jiajing to the Leopard Room. As the Emperor engaged in coitus with each in turn, he became convinced they were giggling at him. His Majesty confronted them with his paranoid imaginings, then handed them each a knife and ordered them to commit suicide. Tranquillity, Heavenly Orchid and Joyous Abundance successfully put themselves to death. But Concubine Bamboo survives in the infirmary.’

Under my bandages, the lesions on my chest scream as the maggots of ire writhe. ‘Bamboo is not dead? She survives? Indeed, that is a tragedy! I must go at once and finish the job!’

Elegantly coiffed heads shake at me in dismay. Concubine Emerald reaches and squeezes my hand. ‘Forgive her, Concubine Swallow. Every one of us has incised the flesh of others. Who amongst us has been brave enough to refuse the torturer’s blade? The tyrant must be obeyed under pain of death. You must forgive Concubine Bamboo.’

‘Forgive her, forgive her,’ the she-goats bleat. But I can’t. Fury chokes the gullet at the mere thought of you.

‘Concubine Bamboo was no unwilling torturer,’ I spit. ‘Her eyes lit up as she spilt my blood, and with every incision she grew ever more ambitious with the blade.’

‘She is a child of only fourteen years old.’

I hiss, ‘A demonic child. A satanic nymph with a thirst for blood.’

‘At the Emperor’s bidding she slashed her own throat,’ says Concubine Tender Willow. ‘How many cups of blood do you think poured down her gullet? Enough to quench her thirst for good, I should think.’

‘Concubine Swallow,’ Jasmine says sternly, ‘you must let the desire to take revenge on the child go. We have more urgent concerns. Do you know of the Daoist monk One Hundred Trees?’

‘The hermit sage who lives in the enchanted forest on Mount Emei?’

‘Yes. Him.’

Melodious Songbird, Tender Willow and Emerald each speak in turn:

‘One Hundred Trees has come to the Forbidden City to tell Emperor Jiajing of a new cure for mortality . . .’

‘The hermit sage says it is the blood that thickens the uterus then seeps from our womanly orifice every moon cycle.’

‘One Hundred Trees told Emperor Jiajing that a cupful every day will prolong his life.’

‘Every day the harem-keepers consult the Ledger of Menstrual Cycles of the Concubines. Those menstruating are ordered to a chamber by the Gate of Obedience. They are forced to lie on a wooden bed, their ankles hooked in stirrups that hang from the ceiling . . .’

‘A long, hook-ended needle is the tool that is used. Sometimes the bleeding cannot be staunched afterwards, and some have bled to death.’

‘No one is safe. Not even the princesses.’

My eldest, Lily, is eleven. Has the curse struck her down yet? I must protect her from this atrocity! Outraged, I spit, ‘We must end this barbarous practice! We must bribe the eunuchs to trick Emperor Jiajing with chicken’s blood!’

‘Bribery has been attempted. Concubine Splendid Jade is now subject to torture in the Palace of Punishments.’

‘But something must be done,’ I cry. ‘If Emperor Jiajing harms my daughters I shall . . . I shall . . .’

‘Murder him?’ suggests Concubine Jasmine with a wry smile.

I look at the fifteen palace ladies on the circular bench, their hands clasped on laps. They look back at me, their eyes glittering and fierce. Together, we are the sixteen mothers of the twenty-six princesses. Now I see. Concubine Emerald continues, ‘We are plotting now, the ways and means. We each accept the sacrifice of our lives, for assassination of the Emperor won’t come without this penalty.’

My heart beats swiftly beneath my flayed and bandaged chest. For the eighteen years I have lived in the Inner Palace, I have shunned my harem sisters. High on my lofty perch of lonely selfregard, I dismissed them as empty-headed and vain. How wrong I was. My courageous sisters are far nobler than I.

‘We invite you to join us, Concubine Swallow,’ says Concubine Jasmine. ‘Will you accept?’

Murdering Emperor Jiajing is a recurring fantasy of mine, but am I willing to die for it? I dwell for a moment upon my wretched and lonely existence. So what of death? I decide. Better to die nobly than to live on wretchedly, listlessly wandering about the Garden of Dispossessed Favourites, slowly wasting from the rot of old age. Better to die having saved my daughters and the entire Celestial Kingdom from the worst Emperor ever to reign.

‘I will be honoured to,’ I tell them, tears glistening in my eyes.

On a circular stone bench in the Pavilion of Melancholy Clouds, we clasp our pale-as-ivory hands together in solidarity, our pact to kill the Emperor now commenced.

Evening in the palace infirmary. Eunuch physicians unbind my tightly bandaged chest. I lie on the bed and the eunuchs dab at the bleeding and pus-weeping wounds with cotton gauze in tweezers, tutting at my slowness to heal. They unplug the stopper from a bottle of herbal potion, and I claw the sheets as my doused chest blazes like oil set alight.

I go back to the Palace of All Sunshine, aching for the opium pipe, and snow flutters unexpectedly out of the night sky. I gaze up at the spiralling snow, falling to sabotage the winged debut of creatures from cocoons and the burgeoning buds of spring. What does this portend? I wonder. The Gods must be angry indeed, to gust the icy breath of disapproval upon the Imperial City after the coming of spring.

Mesmerized by the snow drifting out of the dark void of sky, I nearly don’t see the girl kneeling in the courtyard of the Palace of All Sunshine. It is Lily, my eldest, and I hasten over, stricken by her bled-dry pallor and the bandages around her neck. But as I draw nearer, my maternal instinct turns to horror and abhorrence. The deceitful night has tricked me again, for it is not Lily, but you. Concubine Bamboo. You shiver in the cold, your shawl of winter mink a pelt of icy tufts. Repentant eyes look up and meet mine. It’s the first time I have seen you since the Leopard Room, and my screams are gagged and bound in my throat. I clench my spitting muscles, gathering saliva. Spittle drips down your cheek, but you don’t wipe it away.

‘Elder Sister Concubine Swallow,’ you cry, ‘I can no longer live with my abominable sins against you. I beg you to forgive me after I am gone . . .’

Out of your shawl you withdraw a dagger. Both hands on the ivory handle, you point the blade at your heart and plunge it down. Shocked, I instinctively leap and catch your wrists before the blade penetrates your chest. I grapple the dagger out of your suicidal grip and cast it into the darkness on the other side of the courtyard. Whetstone-sharpened steel clatters unseen upon stone. The pale beauty of your face is seized by shock. You whisper, ‘Concubine Swallow . . .
Why?
’

‘They’ll punish me for your murder, you snivelling brat!’ Then I knock your head sideways with a furious slap. ‘Now go! Get out of my sight!’

I go into my bedchamber and stumble to my dresser, knocking over the bottles of mandrake extract and honeysuckle balm for masking my decay as I grope for my vial of sleeping draught. Unplugging the stopper, I down three nights’ worth in one long swallow. I put out the spluttering oil lamp and sink on my bed into a fathomless sleep.

Spring tide ebbs and the icicles of winter make one last stab. Night and day you kneel in the courtyard of the Palace of All Sunshine, head bowed as though in prayer. Eye to the peephole in my wax-paper window, I watch you risk pneumonia and death to kneel in the snow and prove your remorse, forsaking meals and sleep and clean bandages for the deep cut in your throat, to become a sculpture of ice. I watch you through the peephole and your pain and subjugation sate a dark species of desire within.

On the third night of your vigil you are swaying on your knees, as though struggling not to faint. She won’t survive the night, I think, smiling thinly. Then I put out my oil lamp and go to bed, expecting to sink into a deep, contented slumber. But sleep does not come. Under my quilt my limbs twitch as though possessed by the demons of fidgetiness and, after an hour of restlessness, I get up and go to my dresser. I pull the stopper out of my sleeping draught, upend the bottle between my lips, but not one drop trickles out. I rummage about in my jewellery box, but the opium is gone too. Cursing, I prepare to go out and bribe one of the guardsmen to smuggle a bottle of wine out of the storehouse for me. I throw a fox-fur cape on over my nightgown and unlatch the door, much aggrieved at having to go out into the freezing night.

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.

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.’