“For insulting the governor, for daring to act on behalf of the emperor, for leaving the imperial city without cause, these men have been sentenced to death to serve as a warning to all others.”

  At the mention of the word death, most of the women started screaming. An Dehai’s mother fainted. A guard stepped in and started hitting us to get us to shut up, but the rest of the crowd that had gathered started cheering as the executioner stepped forward. An Dehai didn’t try to fight back. He calmly bent over at the waist and waited for the death stroke to fall. I didn’t want to see him die, I had never seen someone die before, but I think I was in so much shock I didn’t think it would actually happen. The executioner stepped forward and with one quick strike, An Dehai’s head fell from his body. Blood squirted everywhere and his body slumped to one side. The women erupted in screams again and more of them fainted. The crowd erupted in cheers again. I was frozen solid. It was all too horrible to comprehend. Then, they brought the other eunuchs forward and beheaded them one by one. I did my best to look away, but my eyes were always drawn back to the gory sight. Then, nearly twenty more men, the sailors of various ranks, were also executed. In the end, every man who was on the journey with us was killed.

  When it was over, we were all led back to our cell.

  * * *

  * * *

  A couple of days later, the guard returned. I could hardly respond when I heard him call my name.

  “Yang Yaqian,” he yelled.

  My mouth went dry. Was he there to kill me?

  “Yang Yaqian!” he yelled again.

  I couldn’t respond, but I stood and held up my hand.

  “You are Yang Yaqian?” he asked. I nodded. He grunted as several other guards entered the room. “All of them but that one,” he said.

  The rest of the women were forced to line up and were once again chained together. Wensong and I held on to each other for as long as we could.

  “Please, leave her too!” I begged.

  “Get back, bitch,” one the guards growled as he ripped Wensong from me and pushed me against the wall.

  One by one, the women were led out of the cell, and I was left alone. The only comfort I had was that I didn’t hear any screaming crowds outside, so hopefully they were not being executed. I huddled by myself in one little corner of my cell and waited.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. A few hours later, the guard returned and ordered me to follow him. He wasn’t as gruff or cruel as before. He didn’t push me or clap me in chains. As we walked down the hallway, a familiar face came into view. When I realized it was Prince Gong, I wanted nothing more than to run to him, but his face was steely, as if in warning. I stayed calm and kept walking. He joined me at the foot of a stairwell and motioned for me to go up. He followed close behind, but didn’t say anything. When we got outside, I paused to blink to adjust my eyes to the sunlight. The prince gripped my forearm and led me to a horse. Still without speaking, he climbed up on the horse and then pulled me up behind him. I breathed a sigh of relief as I wrapped my arms around him and we started to gallop away.

  As we were leaving the city, I saw a bunch of wooden cages being pulled by heavy horses following another path. In the cages were all the women from the dungeon, including Wensong.

  “Wait,” I said, sitting up and tugging on the prince’s shirt. “Wensong! The others! We can’t leave them!”

  “Keep quiet!” the prince barked. “We can do nothing.”

  The prince gave his horse a sharp kick and we rode away from the city as fast as we could. We didn’t speak until we arrived at another town several hours away. The prince stopped the horse at an inn. He paid the blacksmith far too much to just board a horse for the night, and then he paid the innkeeper far more than was needed for a room for the night. But I said nothing. One of the barmaids took me to a room in the back of the inn that served as a bathhouse where she helped me undress and bathe. Afterward, she took me to the room the prince had rented for the night where some bowls of noodles and hot dumplings were waiting. After she left, and only the prince and I were in the room, I fell on the food like a rabid wolf. The prince stood by a window and smoked his pipe.

  “Are we going to talk now?” I asked after I finished eating.

  He shrugged. “What about?”

  “What happened?”

  “What did happen?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We were traveling down the Grand Canal. We stopped in Shandong and almost everyone went into the city to eat and drink and shop. I stayed on the ship. That night, I was dragged away and thrown into the dungeon where the others already were. They only took us out once, so we could watch An Dehai and the others be executed. Then the other women were taken away. Then you came for me and now we are here.”

  “You probably don’t need to know much more than that,” he said. “I’m sure you can piece it together.”

  Obviously, whatever happened had to do with An Dehai. I don’t know why the other men were executed, but the governor of Shandong must have been offended by An Dehai and had him killed.

  “What I don’t know,” I said, “is what is happening to the other women.”

  “I’m not exactly sure. I wasn’t able to ask. But they will probably be taken west, along the trading routes, and sold off.”

  “Sold off?” I asked. “You mean sold into slavery?”

  He nodded.

  “How is that possible? That free women can be sold like property?”

  “They broke the law,” he said. “They are no longer free.”

  “They didn’t break any law. They were only following orders. The empress’s orders.”

  “The empress is lucky that she is not being prosecuted for this,” he said. “But the grandees just wanted to send a message. She is just a dowager empress, not a queen. Once her son comes of age, she will retire and have nothing more to do with governing.”

  “She knows that,” I said.

  “She does now.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her?” I asked. “Why didn’t you respond to my letters?”

  “It needed to happen,” he said. “An Dehai needed to die.”

  “But I could have died,” I said. “Why am I here?”

  “If I had stepped in, Cixi would have known something was going on and might have changed her mind.”

  “You mean, you knew about this? You knew this was going to happen? You could have stopped it?

  The prince didn’t respond.

  “Did you plan this? Did you orchestrate the whole thing?”

  Again, his silence confirmed my suspicions.

  “Did he threaten you?” I asked. “Did he threaten to tell the empress what he knew?”

  “Yes,” the prince finally said. “He said he would tell the empress about Hulan. He would ruin you and Lady Tang. And who knows what would have happened to our daughter.”

  “You did this for us?” I asked.

  “I did this for China,” he said. “Protecting my family was just the catalyst.”

  “You consider us family?” I asked.

  “The only family that matters right now,” he said. He walked over to me and pulled me up to him. We kissed passionately as we made our way over to the bed. We quickly removed each other’s clothes as we tumbled down on the mattress.

  * * *

  Outside of Peking, the prince stopped his horse and helped me down.

  “Here is where I have to leave you,” he said. “It can’t be known that I rescued you, or else the empress will know I was involved.”

  “What will I tell her then?” I asked.

  “Just make up something,” he said. “Say you hid on the ship and then a kindly merchant let you ride back to the city in his cart.”

  He found a mule cart driver and paid him to carry me to the Forbidden City. Then he trotted off into the darkness of the cold, early morning.

  It was daylight by the time I made it to the side gate of the Forbidden City. I was tired, cold, and hungry, but I went straight into the see the empress.

  She looked terrible. Her head was in her hands, her hair was disheveled, and she looked as though she had been crying. As I walked toward her, she lifted her head and stared at me in disbelief. She probably thought the whole expedition had been lost. She quickly stood and descended the stairs, running toward me. As she approached, I fell to my knees and kowtowed to her. She grabbed my arms, pulling me to my feet and stared at me.

  “You are alive?” she asked. “How can this be?”

  “I hid,” I said. “I was on the ship when the others were taken. I hid until I could flee.”

  “How…how is it you have returned?” she asked in confusion. I don’t think she could quite process what I was saying.

  “I asked for help on the road. A kindly merchant helped me return to the city…”

  “No,” she said, shaking me. “How is it you have returned?”

  “I…I don’t understand, Your Majesty,” I said, unsure of how to respond.

  “You! Worthless servant!” she said, nearly screaming as she shook my arms. “How is it you have returned when An Dehai is dead?”

  “I…I don’t know!” I yelled back. “There was nothing that could be done.”

  “Where is he?” she screamed. “They have refused to send him back to me! Is he still alive? Did they lie? Tell me he survived.”

  “He is dead, Your Majesty,” I said. “They are all dead. The eunuchs, the seamen. The women were all sold as slaves.”

  The servants and ladies around us all gasped. I guess they didn’t know that part. Perhaps they thought the women were still in captivity or had also been killed.

  “But you survived,” she sneered, pushing me away and causing me to fall to the floor. “You worthless little bitch. You always find your way out of trouble, don’t you?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. She was obviously hurt and angry and lashing out, but I had tried to stop her. Everyone had tried to stop her. This was her own fault. I gritted my teeth and was about to lay the blame at her feet where it belonged, but another voice beat me to it.

  “This is all your fault!” a young voice interrupted. “Don’t blame Mistress Yang for your errors!”

  Everyone looked and saw Liujian standing defiant. “An Dehai and the rest are all dead because of you! Everyone told you not to send An Dehai as the head of the expedition. You can’t blame anyone else. An Dehai’s death is on your hands, and your hands alone.”

  Everyone sat or stood in total silence. Even though everyone was thinking the same thing, to point out an empress’s failure was nearly an act of treason. And for a eunuch to speak against a member of the imperial family was a death sentence.

  Empress Cixi was so shocked and angry she couldn’t speak, but the whole room was trembling from her great rage. She finally raised her left hand and then gave a small wave with two of her fingers. Four or five other eunuchs appeared practically out of the shadows and seized Liujian.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he begged as he was dragged away.

  I crawled back to my knees and kowtowed again. “Please, show mercy, Your Majesty,” I begged. “He is just a boy…”

  “Silence!” Cixi yelled. “Don’t stick your neck out for him, Yaqian, if you want it to continue connecting your head to your body.” She turned away from me and left the main hall, followed by her dozen attendants.

  The sound of Liujian’s screams floated into the hall as he was beaten to death by the other eunuchs. I sat down and put my head on my knees as I wept for him. He shouldn’t have spoken out, but it was clear the empress killed him because he was my favorite. She had lost her favorite eunuch, and now I lost mine. The prince had killed someone close to her heart, and now the empress had killed one close to mine. I thought about how to the two people I loved most in the world, the prince and the empress, were so capable of such passion and such cruelty. As much as the three of us loved each other, we could also hurt each other more deeply than most people could imagine possible.

  The empress was so heartbroken by the death of An Dehai that she took to her bed for a month. I did my best to continue working on the wedding clothes, but I lacked the feelings of love and happiness such work required. I would sit, staring at my needle and thread for hours, unable to make a single stitch. All I could see in my mind was An Dehai’s bloody, twitching body and all I could hear were Liujian’s screams.

  19

  The Forbidden City, 1872

  The day of the emperor’s marriage was approaching. Eventually, the empress had returned to her duties and I returned to mine. We were hardly the friends we were before, but we at least were able to work together again. I had not seen Prince Gong in many, many months. Everyone was busy preparing for the marriage celebrations. The Forbidden City was draped in red silk and red lanterns hung from every beam. For the first time in two centuries, a woman had been chosen to be the emperor’s empress, not just a consort. Her name was Alute, and she was a great beauty. I had the honor of being sent to her home to meet her and measure her body to make sure her wedding robe would fit her perfectly. She was lithe and white as a pearl. She had large dark eyes and pink lips, seemingly always plump and pursed, calling to be kissed. I could see why the emperor had chosen such a stunning young girl to be his number one wife.

  I spent so many days and hours on her gown, making sure it would perfectly complement her splendid figure. Her red gown featured a golden dragon and a golden phoenix intertwining around her. She was smaller than I was originally told, so I had to adjust the panels so that the great beasts would perfectly coil around her breasts, her hips, and their tails would fan out on her train equally on each side. The gown was nearly as amazing as the one I had made for Prince Gong so many years before. I was heartbroken that I would not be able to see Alute ascend the main stairs into the Forbidden City in all her glory. Alute would be entering the front gate, a gate no woman had been permitted to enter in over two hundred years. I kept some red strings from that gown with my other mementos.

  A few days before the wedding, I was sitting alone in my room, enjoying some tea by the fire and a moment of quiet when I heard something tapping on my roof. I thought maybe it was squirrels dropping acorns from the tree that hung over my room, but then I heard it again. Then I heard giggling and shushing sounds. I went outside and looked up and saw three young men scurrying around.

  “What do you think you are doing?” I asked calmly.

  The boys looked at me and I realized who they were. I dropped to my knees. “Your Majesty.”

  “Mistress Yang,” the emperor said, jumping down from the roof. He held his hand out, inviting me to stand.

  I had seen the young man more often lately since I was in charge of making his wedding clothes. The emperor had grown from a spoiled child into a handsome man. He was quite tall, taller than his father or his mother, with a clear complexion and charming smile. He was around sixteen years old now.

  His two companions jumped down next to him, and I gave them polite curtseys. They were Wang Qingqi, a court scholar not much older than the emperor, and Zaicheng, Prince Gong’s eldest son. The three had been inseparable for years, known for causing all sorts of mischief around the palace. There were also rumors that the two boys had been helping the emperor sneak out of the palace to visit Han prostitutes in the city, much like his father had before him, but not just female prostitutes. Of course, it was treason to speak of such things, and I really didn’t believe it. The court was always a place for idle gossip by eternally bored young ladies. But now, I couldn’t help but know the truth. They were clearly sneaking out via the oak tree that grew on the other side of the wall whose branches hung over my little room.

  “That tree is rather dangerous,” I finally said. “I am always hearing old branches break off when it rains,” I said.

  “You won’t tell my mother, will you, Mistress Yang?” the emperor asked.

  I must admit, seeing the emperor with his sheepish smile asking me for protection gave me a perverse sense of satisfaction. The other boys giggled. I crossed my arms.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What will you give me for my silence?” I asked.

  “We could take you with us,” Qingqi quipped.

  “What could I possibly find out there that I can’t find in here?” I asked.

  “Maybe we could sneak in my father for you instead,” Zaicheng suggested. At that, the three of them laughed so hard they nearly fell over.

  “You cheeky monkey!” I gasped, feigning anger.

  “We’re sorry, Mistress Yang,” the emperor said, offering me a mock bow. “Seriously, what do you want? Whatever you want, it is yours.”

  “I don’t want anything from you, Your Majesty,” I said. “Just so long as you are a good and just ruler when you come into your own.”

  “No wonder you and my mom are friends,” he said, turning to climb back onto the roof. “You sound exactly the same.”

  * * *

  The emperor married Alute and the two were officially titled as emperor and empress. Empress Dowager Cixi and Empress Dowager Ci’an retired from their administrative duties and no longer had any role in ruling the empire.

  Only days after the emperor’s wedding, I once again heard the little scamps sneaking across my roof and over the wall. I also began to hear them more frequently. I couldn’t completely blame the emperor. He was a teenager and longed for freedom and adventure. Had I been so different? Of course, I didn’t seek sexual adventures, but I knew their pleasures well enough. The emperor’s life was completely regulated. From before dawn until midnight, grandees and eunuchs and magistrates led him from one side of the Forbidden City to the other making sure he fulfilled his never-ending duties. Of course he would want some time out of his prison and in the arms of waiting lovers.

  But I couldn’t condone his neglect of Empress Alute and his other consorts. It was something I would never understand. If he was fulfilling his husbandly duties and then seeking outside pleasures, there would be no qualms. But some of her attendants had whispered to the attendants of Empress Cixi that not only was Alute not pregnant, she was still a virgin. This caused great distress among Empress Cixi and Empress Ci’an. The only job of an empress was to produce sons. It should also always be the main concern for an emperor. The dynasty must continue. Of course, running the empire, making sure the country prospered, these were his most important daily jobs, but a successful empire meant nothing if there was not a son to leave it to.