“I don’t see what any of this matters,” I said. “The prince can’t claim you. As far as anyone knows, you are Chinese. The council would never let the emperor take you as a consort. Besides, even if he did, then what? You will no longer be my apprentice? You would become a lady of the court?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But why can’t the prince claim me? He can just say I was the daughter of a whore and he was too shamed to take me home to his wives and gave me to the empress instead.”

  “‘The daughter of a whore’?” I said, nearly choking on the words. “How dare you!”

  “Forgive my careless words,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean you were a whore. I was just speaking hypothetically about an imaginary woman who never existed.”

  “I know that!” I yelled. “But it is still stupid. You think the council would let the daughter of a whore be a consort? What would the empress say if she found out the daughter of a whore had been living in her household?”

  “It was just an example!” she said. “You’re missing the point! It could be any invisible lady. An aristocrat. Lady Tang!”

  “It was a terrible example,” I said. “It just proves that you haven’t given this any reasonable thought.”

  “Mother, will you just listen?” she yelled, stomping her big, unbound foot.

  “Don’t ever call me that,” I said firmly.

  Her eyes welled with tears. She threw down her embroidery and ran off to her room.

  * * *

  That evening, the empress was clearly aggrieved. The ladies were all nervous to be in her presence and the eunuchs seemed to walk even more silently. I requested permission to approach her and she acquiesced. I asked if we could dismiss the other attendants and she nodded.

  “You look as annoyed as I feel,” I said to her after the others were gone.

  “That bad?” she asked.

  “Is there something you would like to talk about?” I asked.

  “It is just that boy,” she said. “He is testing me.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “This kingdom is…it is unwell,” she said. “I tried, after the death of my husband, to build it up, to make it strong. I thought that I had set things in motion that would keep us barreling toward the future. But then, my son, my dearly loved son, came into his own.”

  I nodded, not saying anything. She clearly needed to say some things that she couldn’t say to anyone else.

  “We came to a dead halt. He didn’t keep moving forward. We froze. And worse, we fell back. China lost five years of progress while my son was the emperor. And we are still, a decade later, trying to catch up.

  “I am afraid,” she said. “I am afraid of letting go again. Do you see? I don’t retain power for myself. I do it for everyone else. And not just the council or the foreign powers who want me here. I do it for every single person in China. My work will bring millions of people out of poverty. I will do so much for them.”

  “Everyone knows that you are a good empress,” I said.

  “Everyone except Guangxu,” she said. “He wants to take over. He wants to be emperor.”

  “But you don’t think he can do it?” I asked.

  “I know he can’t,” she said.

  I didn’t tell her that it was her own fault. That if she wanted the boy to be a good emperor she should have taught him how to be one herself.

  “Today he got angry,” she said. “He demanded to know why preparations were not being made for his ascension. For his wedding. Can you believe it is time for that little boy to take wives already?”

  “Time has traveled extraordinarily fast,” I said.

  “But the councilors don’t want me to step down. They want to issue an edict and they want the emperor to sign it that says I am to retain the role of regent for a few more years.”

  “You don’t think he will?” I asked.

  “He declared that he would not sign it,” he said. “He said it is against law and tradition to deny him his birthright.”

  Again, I didn’t reply. Guangxu was right. As the emperor, no one had the right to deny him, even if it was in the best interest of the country.

  “What will you do?” I asked.

  “What can I do?” she asked. “If only there was some way to distract him, some way to placate him.”

  “Well, he is a young man,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I think I might know a distraction that would work.”

  “How do you know anything about this?” she asked.

  “Because Hulan told me.”

  “Hulan? Your embroidery girl?”

  I nodded. “She told me that the emperor wants to take her as a lover.”

  “That would be impossible,” she said.

  “That is what I told her,” I said. “But what if it wasn’t? What if as part of the agreement to let you retain power for a few more years, he was allowed to take a consort before his official marriage?”

  “I don’t think we can do that,” she said. “First of all, the girl is Chinese. Second, she couldn’t have an official role as a consort. It would ruin the standing and wedding of his proper empress later on.”

  “There is no precedent for you to remain in control after your son comes of age,” I said boldly, “yet the grandees are willing to do it. There might not be a precedent for him to take an early consort, but I am sure the grandees would find a way to make it happen if it meant everyone getting what they want and the country continue prospering.”

  The empress contemplated this for a while. It would be easy to retain power if Guangxu was distracted by a woman. Hadn’t she used her own feminine ways to get into bed with her husband in the first place? No one knew the influence a woman could hold over a man better than she did. Finally, she leaned over and spoke in a low voice.

  “You do realize that Guangxu and Hulan are cousins, right?”

  My heart stopped beating and my mouth went dry. Did she know? Had she always known? “What?” I finally stammered out.

  “She is Prince Gong’s daughter,” she said. “She has to be. She looks like him. Besides, why else would he go all the way to Hunan to get her?”

  “I don’t…who…who is her mother?” I asked. I am sure I sounded so stupid.

  “I’m not sure, but I suspect it is Lady Tang. When he was in Hunan putting down another group of rebels he stopped to see Lady Tang before he returned. Why else would he stop there? They must have been having an affair. Probably started the first time he was there, when his brother sent him to get you.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be shocked that she would suspect Lady Tang of being Hulan’s mother or relieved. Did she not remember that I was also in Hunan at that same time?

  “I hope you won’t hold this against Lady Tang,” I said. “She has been nothing but loyal to the empire even when the Taiping were nearly at her door.”

  “I know,” she said. “And who can argue with results? Her students are the best embroidery girls in the country. I only hope you won’t hold it against her.”

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Everyone knows you’ve had feelings for the prince ever since he brought you to me.”

  “It is nothing,” I said. “I was a foolish girl.”

  “Weren’t we all?” she asked rhetorically.

  “But what does this mean for Hulan?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll have to think about it. The fact that she is a Manchu of royal blood will strengthen her case, but I don’t know if the council will accept her. And what if she gets pregnant? Would the baby be his heir? Then what about his empress?”

  I didn’t have any answers for her.

  * * *

  A few days later, Hulan was moved from her servant quarters to her own small palace. She was not given any official title or recognition, but it was simply accepted that she was the emperor’s mistress. Not long afterward, the emperor approved an edict appointing Cixi as regent for a few more years.

  I quickly began to miss my little apprentice. I didn’t realize how much time we spent together until she was gone. As a court lady, I couldn’t simply go visit her whenever I wanted. I would have to be summoned, which she didn’t do for quite a while, but I am sure she was busy getting settled into her new life.

  When she did summon me, I was shocked by the reason why. We sat down together and she dismissed her servants so we could talk privately.

  “I need your advice, as a woman,” she said.

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure how I could help her since I didn’t know anything about being in a relationship with a man.

  “I had not been with any man before the emperor, so I can’t compare our intimacy with anything else, but…I don’t think it’s right…what we do…” She started to tear up so I put my arm around her.

  “Don’t cry. I’m sure everything is fine. Just tell me what happens. He isn’t hurting you, is he?”

  “Oh, no, of course not. He is very kind to me. But…well. I know he is supposed to…go inside me. But many times he can’t because he isn’t hard enough. He says he wants to, and we kiss and touch and I will be ready for him, but he just…can’t. Or if he can, it is over very quickly. He enters me and he spills and then he is soft again. Or he will spill before he can enter me.”

  I thought about my nights with the prince and how they were nothing like what Hulan was describing. The prince never had a problem becoming hard and he would last for a long time. I remembered how our lovemaking seemed to last for hours sometimes. Of course, I didn’t want to tell my daughter this, but I was sad that she wasn’t enjoying the pleasure I knew was possible from a man.

  “I am sorry to hear about your troubles, my dear,” I said. “I haven’t experienced anything like you are describing.”

  “I was afraid of that,” she said. “The other girls, the other gōngnǚ, I have heard them talk before about sleeping with some of the court grandees, so I knew something was wrong.”

  “There, there,” I said. “I didn’t say anything was wrong. I just said I hadn’t experienced it. Some people, maybe they just experience pleasure differently. He is spilling his seed, so he must be enjoying you.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But it isn’t very pleasurable for me for him to end so soon. I get so excited, but since he is done so quickly, I am not satisfied.”

  “Have you told him this?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “He gets so embarrassed. I don’t want to make it worse.”

  “You should try to talk to him,” I said. “You can’t be lovers if only he is feeling love.”

  “What do I say?” she asked.

  “Well, just try other things,” I said. “Don’t let him run away afterward. Tell him to keep touching and kissing you. He could pleasure you with his hands. You could also try taking him in your mouth. Some men like that.”

  She blushed, so of course she was imagining me with her father.

  “Just try to figure out what each of you likes and try to meet each other’s needs. Don’t reject him just because he doesn’t make love the way you imagined he would.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  22

  The Forbidden City, 1885

  I don’t think I aged the way most people do. It wasn’t until I was forty-four years old that I felt old for the first time. My life didn’t follow the trajectory of most women. Empress Cixi was married at sixteen and was a mother by twenty-one. She was a widow by twenty-seven and was raising a boy young enough to be her grandson by age forty. This was a timeline most women followed, married and with children by twenty and a grandmother by forty.

  My life had taken a completely different course. I never married. I had a child at the late age of twenty-four, but I didn’t raise her myself. I didn’t see my life slipping away with each milestone my daughter crossed. Now, at forty-four, I was in no sight of a grandchild and would never be a widow. My life simply didn’t have the age markers that most do. At least it didn’t until I saw the effects of age in someone I loved.

  I was sitting outside the empress’s palace when I saw a familiar face walking by. I sauntered down the stairs and kneeled as I greeted him.

  “My prince,” I said.

  “Yaqian!” he replied, happier than the moment required, and reached for my hand. “How are you? You are just the person I need to see.”

  “I am happy to see you too, Your Highness,” I said. It had been a while since I had seen him. He was in the palace nearly every day, but our lives were completely separate.

  “I think you can help me,” he said. “The dowager empress’s birthday is coming up and arrangements need to be made.”

  “As far as I know there will be no birthday celebrations,” I said. “The country and the empress are busy with the war with France and she believes a birthday celebration would send the wrong message. You are the head of the council. Haven’t you heard this?”

  “Yes, of course. But it is her fiftieth birthday. Quite important. Such a milestone. We need to make arrangements for her birthday.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “We need to make arrangements for her birthday,” he said. “I am sure you can help me.”

  “That is not my area. Li Lianying would be in charge of celebrations. But, as I said, I don’t think she wants any celebrations…”

  “That little boy?” he asked. “Where is An Dehai? He is the only one who can turn her ear.”

  I could feel my face drop and my heart stop at this. Why would he be asking for An Dehai? He had been dead for years. The prince glanced around nervously, as if he was lost or looking for something. I studied his face and his manners. He fidgeted with his beard, which was now streaked with gray. His eyes were a little cloudy and he had lost weight.

  “An Dehai is dead, my prince,” I said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Of course, of course,” he said waving his hand. “But the arrangements for her birthday must be made. Will you speak to her?”

  “Of course, I will,” I said. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Should I send for your sedan chair to take you home?”

  “No, there is simply too much to do. I must return to my office.”

  I kneeled as he left. He seemed to walk away more slowly than usual.

  * * *

  That evening, the empress was clearly agitated as she was reviewing papers from the day.

  “Your Majesty?” I said as I kneeled before her.

  “Yes, Mistress Yang?” she asked.

  “I wish to speak to you about Prince Gong.”

  She took a deep breath before she moved her papers aside and motioned for me to sit near her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “He came by today, while you were at audiences.”

  “He was at audiences for a long time until I finally dismissed him. He must have come here afterward. You know we are fighting a war with France?”

  I nodded.

  “He just went on and on about my birthday! Can you believe it? For an hour and a half he talked of the importance of ranking gifts and how they should be delivered and who should be allowed to send them. And this was after I had already told the council that there would be no birthday celebrations this year.”

  “That was the crux of his visit here today as well. He wanted me to convince you to go ahead with the celebrations.”

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Just as you said, Your Majesty. The war is the only thing the court is focused on right now.” She rubbed her eyes as though they were weary. “Majesty, is there something wrong with him?” I asked. “He seemed…a bit confused when he was here. Almost like he was lost.”

  “He is…not himself,” she said. “He has taken several long leaves. Some days, he simply doesn’t come to the palace. He has been no help during this crisis with France. He hasn’t offered any solutions. I don’t know what is wrong with him.”

  “Perhaps he just needs to rest…” I tried to say.

  “I need to rest!” she snapped. “Do you think running an empire is easy? I should have retired years ago and spent my whole days resting. We are all tired. Prince Gong is nothing special. If he is of no use to me, then he shouldn’t be around.”

  “Have you asked for his resignation?” I asked.

  “No, I can’t. He is my brother-in-law, he is older than I am, and he has been the head of the Grand Council for over twenty years. And don’t forget his reputation with the foreigners. I can’t simply send him away. As much as he aggravates me, he is too important. He would have to do something egregious to warrant that.”

  The empress rubbed her chin and I could see her mind working. This was a woman who was exceedingly clever and always got what she wanted. If she wanted Prince Gong gone, I was sure she could manufacture a reason. But how far would she go? Would she be satisfied with his resignation, or would she require his total removal?

  I took my leave and wrote a letter to Lady Yun, my old friend and one of Prince Gong’s wives.

  * * *

  The next day I received a letter of invitation to tea with Lady Yun at Prince Gong’s mansion. I was nervous about being in his home, but I knew I needed to speak to someone regarding the prince’s condition and what could be done to protect his future. Lady Yun was my only way to do that.

  I hired a donkey cart outside the side gate of the Forbidden City to take me to Prince Gong’s mansion. The mansion was located in the northwest corner of Peking, down a quiet green road. The mansion was like a little Forbidden City, with four great walls concealing dozens of four-walled courtyards. There were residence buildings and gardens. The estate had been home to grandees and princes for hundreds of years, each occupant adding onto the majesty of the previous.

  The front gate opened as soon as my cart pulled up. I didn’t have to knock or tell the guards who I was, they seemed to know innately. A maid was there to greet me and motioned for me to follow her. The palace was exquisite. We walked past several ponds and green areas to a courtyard in the north of the complex. I wondered if Lady Yun wanted to meet me here instead of closer to the front just so I could see how marvelous her home was. There were many people of all ages milling about. Children were playing by a koi pond. Elegantly dressed women were sitting and chatting. They hid their mouths behind fans when I walked by. Elderly women were scrubbing floors or shelling peas. An old man was tending to one of the gardens.