Unfortunately, even after living among Manchus for so long, my understanding of the afterlife was very Chinese. I blended what I knew about Heaven and life and death with what I knew the empress believed and told the story as best I could.

  I started with bright yellow silk, as befitting an empress of China. At the top of the banner, I wove pink chrysanthemums, her favorite flowers, and orchids, the first name she was given upon entering the palace. These were to represent her birth and the beginning of her life as a consort to the emperor. Magpies, lovely little birds that can come together and create a bridge to Heaven, fluttered around the flowers.

  Below that, I embroidered two five-clawed dragons, one for her husband and one for her son. On their left, I embroidered a crescent moon, and on their right, a red sun. These symbolized the heavenly realm above that of humans, since the emperors are the Sons of Heaven. I dotted golden fish swimming around the dragon on the left, the dragon representing her husband.

  Then, I embroidered the likeness of the empress herself centered on a dais surrounded by her ladies, her eunuchs An Dehai and Li Lianying, and her most important grandee, Prince Gong. In her left hand, I put a small scepter, similar to ones I had seen in paintings of Queen Victoria. I knew the empress would like that. One of her ladies held a green parasol over her head.

  Below that, I embroidered the empress meeting with the Lords of Heaven. She is bowing to them, but not kneeling, and they happily welcome her. Lovely bats and phoenixes fly around her, demonstrating that she is not sad or suffering, but is enjoying all the comforts of the afterlife.

  At the very bottom is her coffin, surrounded by those she left behind to mourn her. Plates of food, cups of wine, and a treasure vase are there. Incense is burning, even smoke is wafting, and all are kneeling before the coffin. I am there as well.

  When I was finished with the funeral banner, something was missing. Laid out before me, it was beautiful, the empress would be pleased, but I remembered what Lady Tang had told me long ago about my embroidery lacking soul. She was right. The funerary banner for my empress, perhaps my last great work, should have every ounce of myself in it.

  I went to my dressing table and pulled open the bottom drawer. There, in a small box, were my threads of memories. When I kept my first piece of silk thread all those years ago, I had no idea why. What use to me was one piece of thread? I now realized that each thread when placed together with all the others represented my whole life. From the first shoe I had embroidered to my empress’s funeral banner, my life was one long silk thread. I poured out the contents of the box and began to weave the threads of silk into the funerary banner.

  The blue thread from the first shoe I embroidered I weaved into the clouds at the top of the banner. A piece of orange thread from the tiger shoes I had embroidered for her son I weaved into a magpie flying to heaven. A piece of gold thread I had used to make Prince Gong’s marvelous dragon robe I weaved into the robe the prince was wearing on the funeral banner. The last strand of her son’s hair that I had used to embroider children on a piece of silk as a memorial for the young emperor I used to outline the dragon that represented her son.

  On and on, my memories, my life, became one with Empress Cixi. My soul became eternally entwined with the embroidered funeral banner that would forever blanket My Empress.

  Author’s Note

  There was much debate and discussion about whether I should use the Wade-Giles Romanization of Chinese words in this book, which was more popular during the timer period the book is set, or modern Pinyin. I decided to use Pinyin for most names and words since it is the system modern readers are familiar with. Chinese place names, though, are accurate for time period. Peking and Chang’an, for example, were the names Westerners and Chinese would have used at that time; the names Beijing and Xi’an were not adopted until long after the end of the Qing Dynasty.

  About the Author

  Amanda Roberts is a writer and editor who has been living in China since 2010. Amanda has an MA in English from the University of Central Missouri. She has been published in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies around the world and she regularly contributes to numerous blogs.

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