“Are you sure, Yaqian?” Mrs. Keswick asked. “We would be more than happy to take you with us. I promise, you will not be a burden.”

  “You are too kind,” I said. “Far kinder than I expected. But I have already made my choice. As long as Hulan and Arsalan are safe, I will be content here.”

  For the next few days, as they prepared for their journey, Arsalan and Hulan did all they could to convince me to go with them. I began to fear they would take me by force. But in the end, they honored my wishes. I collected everything I had of value, all of my cash, my jewelry, my embroidery work, some of my clothes, everything, and gave it to Hulan. I was certain she and Arsalan would be prosperous in their new lives, but I wanted them to have the best start possible. The only things I kept were a few robes, my embroidered slippers, and my memories. I journeyed with them to the port and watched as they climbed the plank of the huge ship. Mrs. Keswick and her husband – a huge, loud, red, Scottish man who was frightening at first but was one of the nicest men I had ever met – wished me good-bye and asked me one last time to go with them. Of course, I declined, but I did weep as they left. They all stood on the railing and waved to me as the ship pulled away. I held a red handkerchief in my hand and I waved it until the ship sailed out of sight.

  30

  The Forbidden City, 1908

  The empress had been ill for some time, but I had not been allowed to see her. Her grandees, her ladies, the princesses and princes, and all manner of distant relatives were taken before her one by one to express their love and devotion to her in hopes of receiving her blessing or a gift. As a court servant, even of a high rank, I would have to wait until she summoned me. I was beginning to think she wouldn’t, but, finally, the empress sent for me.

  Her room was dark, with all the curtains drawn and doors shut, lit only by a few candles and braziers. The room was smoky with incense and hummed with the prayers of a few monks standing nearby. Several eunuchs, including Li Lianying, stood near her, ready at a moment’s notice to get their empress anything she might need. One of her grandees, Zaifeng, a younger brother of Emperor Guangxu, was sitting by her bed. When I entered, Lianying leaned over and whispered to the empress that I had arrived. I walked halfway across the room and then kowtowed, even though she couldn’t see me. When I raised my head, Zaifeng was motioning for me to approach. When I reached the foot of her bed, Cixi waved her hand, dismissing the servants and Zaifeng. Everyone, even the monks, left. This seemed quite unusual to me since should the empress die, everyone would want to know her last words and decrees, and who would believe the words of a servant?

  After they had all left, Empress Cixi motioned for me to sit by the bed. I did so, and then I took her hand in mine.

  “Look at us,” she said. “Two old women.”

  “You are ageless, Your Majesty,” I said. “You look the same as you did the first time I saw you all those many years ago.”

  “You lie,” she said. “But I appreciate it. I hope even as the last breath leaves my body, my grandees will still tell me that I am living. Maybe the transition from this life to the next will be so seamless I won’t even notice it.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I just stroked her hand. I believed that with a will of iron such as hers, everything, even her death, would happen just the way she decreed it would.

  “I called you here for a reason,” she said. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Anything, Your Majesty,” I said, leaning closer.

  “There is a vial on my dressing table,” she said, glancing that way. “Small, blue, filled with white powder. I need you to make sure the emperor drinks it.”

  “What?” I asked. “Majesty, you cannot…”

  “I can, and you will,” she said. “You must do this for me.”

  “There must be someone else who is better suited to the task,” I said. “Lianying?”

  “Lianying has too much compassion for the boy, too much sympathy. He could never do it.”

  “I can’t believe you are asking this of me,” I said. “If I am caught…”

  “Good thing I already outlawed the Death by a Thousand Cuts,” she said before letting out a hacking laugh.

  “But why?” I asked. “He is your heir.”

  “Some heir,” she scoffed. “He already tried to kill me at least once. He would have done it a hundred times by now if I hadn’t guarded him so closely.”

  “But he is the emperor. He is supposed to rule when you are gone. What harm can he do you after you are gone?”

  “Plenty!” she said. “You know what damage that Wild Fox already did to my reputation, in China and abroad. What vile things will Guangxu say when my body is cold? And what about the empire? The last time he took over, he ruined us. He stopped all my reforms, the railroad, the currency reform, stopped sending students abroad. He took us into war with Japan and bankrupted us. I handed him a country made of gold and he gave it back as mud. When I am gone, he will do it again. He will stop the changes. He will call the students back or abandon them. He will war with the foreigners. He will end the plans to institute the parliament. He will be the end of not just the Manchu Dynasty, but of China.”

  The empress began to wheeze and cough. I patted her back and rubbed her arm. “Shh,” I said. “Calm yourself, Your Majesty. Do not worry yourself so. Everything will be fine.”

  She leaned back on her pillow and took long, low breaths. “It will only be fine if that boy is gone,” she said.

  “But, he is your son, your heir,” I said. “Who will take his place if you are gone?”

  “I don’t suppose your grandson would be willing to take up the mantle?” she asked with a twinkle of mischief in her eye.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, as stupidly as ever.

  “Don’t lie to me on my deathbed, Yaqian.”

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “I’ve always known,” she said. “I have spies everywhere.”

  I glanced around the room, wondering just who was watching us now. “What did I ever do to make you spy on me?” I asked.

  “I was right to spy on you! You were keeping secrets from me!”

  “I was right to keep secrets from you! You were spying on me!”

  “So here we are,” she said. “Give me the boy.”

  “Why? He is a bastard. A nothing.”

  “He is your grandson. He is Prince Gong’s grandson. He is the son of an emperor.”

  “Not officially. Prince Gong has other sons and grandsons who would all be better…”

  “I don’t know their mothers. I don’t trust them. They are conniving and scheming and who knows where they came from. Vapid, brainless girls. But the grandson of you and the prince, the two people who I trust more than anything in the world. He went to school in America. He is smart and modern. There is no one better to follow in my footsteps.”

  My heart broke for her. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent Hulan and Arsalan away. On her deathbed, the only thing she cared about was her empire, her dynasty, and making sure they endured. But I could not give her this comfort. I had already sent the boy away and there was nothing else I could do.

  “It matters not,” I said. “The boy and his mother are gone. They took a steamer to England yesterday.”

  “You fear for the future of my kingdom as well. You believe it will fall without me at the helm.”

  “I do not know that it will fall, Your Majesty. I do not know what will happen. But I do know change is coming. Maybe it will be all good changes, but in case it is not, I had to make sure my daughter and grandson would be safe.”

  “And what of you?” she asked. “They left you here to face an uncertain future alone?”

  “I am not alone,” I said. “I am here with you.”

  “Then do this for me,” she said. “You secreted my heir away, the least you can do is end that wretched Guangxu before it is too late and he ruins what little empire I have left.”

  I walked over to the dressing table and picked up the blue vial. I opened it and held it to my nose. The white powder inside was odorless, so I assumed it was also tasteless.

  “How should I give it to him?” I asked.

  “Take that pot of tea over there, the chrysanthemum. Take it to him as a gift from me. Mix the powder in. It will make him very sick, but it won’t work immediately. Hopefully you will be gone long before he dies and they won’t connect you to it.”

  “They won’t let me in to see him,” I said.

  “There is a passage, a hidden one. I’ll explain it to you. I’ll call all the guards and eunuchs to me. You should be able to slip in and out easily.”

  “You never said who you would appoint as heir,” I said.

  “Puyi,” she replied. The three-year-old son of Zaifeng.

  * * *

  The hidden entrance to the emperor’s Sea Palace was exactly where Empress Cixi had said it was. Behind a row of hedges in a secluded corner, the secret passage led to a long corridor far enough from the emperor’s rooms that not many people would pass by. Did the emperor have any idea this was here? Is this how she had always known what he was doing? How many times had the empress sent one of her eunuchs or ladies here to spy on the emperor?

  The Sea Palace felt almost completely deserted. As I left the empress, she had gone into a fit, crying and wailing, so every available servant, every courtier, every grandee ran to her side. Even though the emperor was also sick, she took precedent. As I entered the emperor’s chambers, he was in his bed all alone, his short, shallow breaths the only sound.

  I approached quietly and cautiously, so as not to disturb him. As I stood by his side and looked at him through the gauze mosquito netting, he already looked dead – pale, waxy, tired even though he was asleep.

  He must have sensed my presence because he opened his eyes and looked directly at me. “Is she dead?” he whispered. “Have you come to inform me of her death?”

  “No,” I said, kneeling down and pulling the gauze curtains back. “Her health is failing, but she has not left us yet.”

  “Then why are you here?” he asked.

  I held up the teapot. “She bade me bring you some of her prized chrysanthemum tea as a gift. Quite possibly her last gift.”

  He coughed as he tried to laugh. “Afraid of the afterlife is she? Trying to make amends? Wanting forgiveness? Well, that old bitch shall have none of it from me.” He coughed harder and doubled over in pain. I set the teapot aside and helped him sit up against his many pillows.

  “Please, Your Majesty,” I said. “Do not strain yourself. You are quite unwell.”

  “I’ll pull through,” he said. “I am stronger than I look. I will pull through.”

  He leaned back on his pillows, closed his eyes, and took a few deep, calming breaths. I thought for a moment he might go back to sleep. Perhaps it was for the best. If he was asleep, I wouldn’t be able to do what the empress had commanded. Who knew how much time I had left before his eunuchs returned and either I slipped out or they threw me out. I didn’t think I could do it. I was grasping for any excuse to free me from my task. I sat silently, not disturbing him as he started to drift off.

  But then, he roused himself, opened his eyes, and spoke clearly, as if he was suddenly able to will himself back to good health.

  “You will tell me, won’t you?” he asked. “As soon as she is dead, you must tell me. I will be the true emperor again in that moment and I mustn’t waste any time.”

  I nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. I will inform you immediately of any change.”

  “Good,” he said with a nod. “There is much work to do. So much damage to undo.”

  “Damage?” I asked.

  “Yes. I suppose a servant would have no knowledge of the greater workings of an empire. You, someone who has lived her whole life in the safety and comfort of a palace, know nothing of the lives of the common people or what it takes to run a government.”

  I didn’t respond. Of course, a large part of me wanted to tell him of my childhood, my years of tending fields. How the life of a servant was hard work. How the empress had unburdened her frustrations as regent to me many times, so I had a very good idea of what difficulties she had faced and how the country was once again peaceful and prosperous in preparation for a new heir. But I didn’t. He wasn’t interested in what I – a servant, a woman – knew about politics or thought about the future. He only wanted someone who would listen to him; he wouldn’t listen back.

  “All of these reforms she has put into place must be stopped. A parliament! Can you believe it? Give power to the people? Commoners? What can they know? If the people can govern themselves, what is the purpose of a Dragon Throne? She has sown the seeds of the end of our rule.”

  “England has a parliament and a king,” I could not hold back from saying.

  “Bah! England!” he nearly shouted. “That is the other thing. We must drive these foreign devils from our shores! They cannot be allowed to govern us, to steal our lands, to enslave our people. They are draining us dry. I’ll ring out the alarm and have all of them slaughtered at once, the legations burned to the ground. China will be Chinese once more.”

  I wanted to tell him he wouldn’t win. As much as Empress Cixi had done to build up the military, China still had no navy. And the foreigners here were a fraction of their numbers abroad. If we slaughtered their people, they would send in troops in droves. They would overthrow the emperor and set up their own government. Empress Cixi had made mistakes, but she never lost the throne. Even in exile, she was always the empress and the foreigners made sure she was reinstated because she had the love and devotion of both the people and the nobles. This boy-emperor had neither.

  Empress Cixi was right. If she died and Guangxu was the man on the throne, that would be the end of the Manchu Dynasty. Either the people would overthrow his repressive, authoritarian regime or the foreigners would depose him in favor of a more Western-friendly appointment.

  But would Puyi be any better? Like the two emperors before him, Puyi was a babe and could not rule on his own. Why would she put another child on the throne? Without her there to rule in his stead, who would take the lead? It appeared that she had put great trust in Zaifeng.

  Zaifeng was Guangxu’s brother, but the two were nothing alike. I suspected that in Guangxu and Zaifeng, Cixi was reminded of her husband, Xianfeng, and his brother, Prince Gong. Had Empress Cixi secretly wished that their father, the Daoguang Emperor, had appointed Prince Gong as his heir instead of Xianfeng? Xiangfeng, like his father, hated the foreigners and spent his life fighting them. Prince Gong saw value in the foreigners’ ways and strived to learn from them. How different all our lives would have been if Prince Gong had been emperor. I began to understand that in appointing Zaifeng as regent, Empress Cixi was attempting to right the wrongs of the past. Zaifeng was the Prince Gong of a new generation.

  While thinking all this, the emperor had continued his rant about all the wrongs of his Papa Dearest he would right as soon as she was dead. He had begun to work himself up into a frenzy and again began to cough, this time violently. I picked up my teapot and a cup from the side of the table and poured the tea. I helped him lean back and drink the poisoned draught. Then I poured him another cup and helped him drink that one as well. I didn’t know how much of the tea it would take to work, but I didn’t want to leave the job undone. I poured him a third cup.

  “Enough, enough,” he said, trying to push my hand away.

  “No, Your Majesty,” I said. “You must drink. You are ill and must be well again.”

  He drank the tea but then threw the cup against a wall, smashing it into countless pieces instead of giving it back to me. He looked at me with something like anger in his eyes. “Crone,” he said, “return to me when she is dead.”

  I nodded, picked up my teapot, and headed back down the corridor to my secret exit.

  * * *

  The emperor died several hours later. Only his wife, Empress Longyu, was with him when he died, so there were no doctors there to help him, no grandees to listen to his last words or to hear his final wishes. All of the palace’s residents and important visitors were attending to the empress or were waiting outside of her palace for any news.

  Did he tell Empress Longyu I had been there?

  I was not permitted to see Empress Cixi again. I didn’t get to say goodbye or tell her what I had done. I do not know who told her that the emperor was dead, but she certainly knew because one of her final decrees was to appoint Puyi as her successor and Zaifeng as his regent. She also appointed Empress Longyu as the new dowager empress and said she would be the person to make the final decision in a time of crisis.

  Even though the title of dowager empress belonged to Longyu by right, no one expected the role to carry any weight or authority with it. Neither Empress Cixi nor the emperor had shown Longyu much care or gave a grain of rice for her thoughts. Longyu was like a willow, always swaying and easily bent. I do not believe her shoulders even knew how to stand up straight. Yet she was now the most powerful person in the empire until Puyi came of age. Even though Zaifeng would be the regent and make all of the decisions for the country in day to day life, in a crisis, all decisions would be made by Longyu. And it would only be a matter of time before a crisis would come. No one could understand why my empress would put such a burden on such a weak woman as her last act. The empress must not have been in her right mind at the end.

  * * *

  My empress died during the afternoon the day after Guangxu passed. While the emperor had died nearly alone, the empress died surrounded by her eunuchs, her ladies, and countless magistrates and grandees. While no one, save his wife, wept for the emperor, the wailing and lamentations for the empress started in her chambers, resonated throughout the Forbidden City, and eventually engulfed the country.

  I was alone in my chambers when it happened. I was sitting by the window working on her funeral banner, a six-foot long piece of embroidered silk that would be placed on her inner coffin. Her death was the end of an era, but I knew she would be happy as she met her ancestors. She had done her best by them and held their kingdom together. Her funeral banner, which would tell the story of her life and lead her to Heaven, had to be magnificent.