“Where am I going?” I asked.

  “You enter the back!” he answered.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You’re a girl!” he said with a laugh.

  I grunted and turned back in my saddle to face the front. The man ahead of me still held my horse’s reins.

  “No female is allowed to enter the Meridian Gate,” he said, referencing the front gate of the palace.

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “That’s just how it is,” he said.

  I crossed my arms and sat in a huff as he led my horse on. It wasn’t fair.

  The man finally stopped by a side gate, which was little more than a big door, called the Gate of Divine Prowess. He motioned for me to get down off my horse. He let the guard at the gate know I had just arrived with Prince Gong’s party. The guard nodded and opened the door. A wagon pulled up and two men removed my trunk from it. They deposited it inside the door and left. I entered the gate and the guard closed the door behind me. I stood there next to my trunk with no idea of what to do next. I had no idea where to go. I didn’t expect to be separated from the prince and the rest of the party, so I hadn’t asked what I needed to do when I arrived. I just stood there, waiting for…something. Finally, I saw a young man walk by, so I waved him over.

  “Hello!” I called. “Can you help me?”

  He walked over, but didn’t say anything. I quickly explained who I was and that I had arrived with Prince Gong’s party and asked him for help.

  “Hmm…” was all he said at first as he pondered my request. “I am not sure what to do with you. I could take you to your room…”

  “I would appreciate that,” I said, surprised I already had a room and that he would know where it was.

  “…and not tell anyone you are here,” he went on. Now I was confused. “Or I could present you to the emperor.”

  “That would be wonderful…” I said, even more confused as this seemed like the preferable option.

  “Well, that might be difficult,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  “I don’t want to cause trouble,” I said.

  “It is no trouble,” he said.

  “Then can someone take my trunk to my room and take me to the emperor?” I asked, growing frustrated with the man.

  “Well, I could, but that would take time. And my time is very valuable,” he said with half a smile and a raise of his eyebrows.

  I finally understood what he meant, but I had never paid anyone for anything before, much less a bribe for preferential treatment. Was it against the rules? Would I get in trouble? How much should I pay? Would I look stupid if I paid too little? Would I be setting myself up for a very expensive cost of living if I paid him too much the very first time I needed something? Honestly, I had no idea what money was even worth. Prince Gong had taught me a little when he helped me buy the embroidery from the villagers we had met, but that was a completely different situation. I decided it would be unwise for him to know how much money I had on me, so I turned my back to him before reaching into my bag and pulling out the same amount of money as I had paid for the least expensive piece of embroidery I had bought.

  “I hope this will make the task easier for you,” I said as I turned around and gave him two small coins and held my chin up as I spoke, trying to feign confidence.

  He looked at the coins I handed him and then back at me. He stared at me for a good minute. I think he was trying to shake my confidence, but I didn’t have any confidence to shake.

  Finally, he turned around and called to another young man who was sitting nearby. “Take this trunk to the servant quarters at Imperial Concubine Yi’s palace,” he ordered. The young man was not able to lift the trunk on his own, so he gave a little bow to the other man and ran off to find help. “Follow me,” the man the ordered me.

  I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was my first encounter with a eunuch. Like most people in the Forbidden City, one encounter was all it took to decide that eunuchs were not to be trusted.

  The Forbidden City was huge. We went down so many hallways and took so many turns I thought I would never find my way back to the Gate of Divine Prowess. Not that I needed to go back to the gate, but I needed some point of reference to help me get my bearings. It was beautiful, though. Every wall, every pillar, every piece of wood was ornately carved with flowers or religious scenes and painted with lacquer of every color.

  We finally arrived at a large, long room. There were several people standing around the edges of the room and several men on their knees in front of a man seated on a large chair on a raised dais. My heart nearly stopped in my chest at the realization that I was looking at Emperor Xianfeng, the Son of Heaven.

  The eunuch put his finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him. He kept his head down and shuffled his feet as he silently walked along one of the walls. I followed, stepping even more delicately than usual on my lotus feet.

  When we were about halfway into the room, we could hear some of what was being said by the men kneeling in front of the emperor and I was able to get a better look at him. He was older than Prince Gong, but he looked younger, more delicate. His face was flawless and gentle looking. His eyes, nose, and lips were all small but well-defined. He wore an elaborate yellow robe, busily embroidered with dragons, clouds, bats, and random auspicious symbols. My mind immediately began imagining how I could make the robe more beautiful. His head was shaved in the front like Prince Gong’s and he had a long queue down the back, but he also wore a black and red hat with what looked like a little tower rising from it. He leaned back in his chair, his chin in his hand, as if he was hardly interested in what the men in front of him were saying. It felt almost treasonous to say, but I didn’t think he was handsome or impressive at all. Honestly, I was rather disappointed by my first impression of the Dragon.

  I looked around the room and noticed Prince Gong on the other side, waiting for his turn to address his brother. He noticed me as well and smiled, apparently quite proud of me since I managed to find my way to the audience hall. I tossed my head, raised my chin, and turned my attention back to the emperor.

  The emperor finally dismissed the men he had been half-heartedly listening to with a wave of his hand. They rose to their feet, but stayed bent at the waist as they backed away.

  “Never turn your back on the emperor,” the eunuch whispered to me. I nodded.

  One of the court attendants announced Prince Gong. He walked up to the front of the dais, bowed, and then keeled before the emperor.

  “I trust that your mission was a success, Prince Gong,” the emperor said.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. “The Taiping are currently on the run. I have managed to cut off many of their supply lines and drive them out of several key cities in Hunan and Guangxi. However, they are still well-fortified in Nanjing and they are quite popular in the provinces around that area. We need more men to fight and take them down. They are like an infestation. If they are not completely burned out, they only come back stronger.

  “The Taiping rebels have left nothing but slaughter in their wake. They have murdered anyone who claims to be loyal to the Son of Heaven. They have burned whole towns that still support you. The people need to be protected.

  “The Americans and the British are greatly distressed by these rebels as well. They believe that Hong Xiuquan is not acting like a true Christian and is giving all Christians a bad face and wish to protect their converts. They have offered to send troops and ammunition and horses to help fight this evil menace.”

  For the first time since I arrived at the audience hall, the emperor sat up and gave his brother his attention. “Don’t speak to me of help from those feckless foreigners!” he nearly yelled. “They can be trusted even less than the Taiping. Would you use tigers to rid your city of bears?”

  “But the British are already here,” Prince Gong tried to calmly explain. “They have ports in Shanghai and Guangdong with men and ships ready to fight. Let them die and suffer the losses instead of us. China has already lost enough…”

  “I will not be indebted to them!” the emperor yelled. “I can protect my own people! I don’t need those white barbarians running around with their weapons and their gods and their armies in my country. If it were up to you, you would let them walk right through the Gate of Supreme Harmony and stand before me as equals!”

  “I would never dishonor you, Your Majesty,” Prince Gong said, his voice low and eyes downcast. “Tell me what to do and I will do it. Tell me how to rid your kingdom of the Taiping plague.”

  “Now I have to tell you how to do your job?” the emperor asked. “That is a matter for the generals. Talk to Sushun.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the prince replied with a bow. “Thank you.”

  “Anything else?” the emperor asked.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the prince said. He motioned for me to come to his side.

  I felt my face go hot. I didn’t have a chance to fix my hair or get the dust off my face and clothes. But I straightened up and walked as gingerly as possible to the prince’s side. I hoped that no one would notice how disheveled I was. I kept my gaze low, but I could see the emperor watching me from the corner of my eye. I bowed and then kneeled and kowtowed before the emperor.

  “This is the embroidery girl you had me fetch while on my journey,” he said. The prince sighed as he introduced me, as if he was glad for a change of topic. “Yang Yaqian.”

  The emperor cleared his throat. “I am glad that you arrived safely, Miss Yang.” I did not reply. “I trust you had a pleasant journey. Did Prince Gong treat you well?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” I replied. “The journey was wonderful. The country is so beautiful. And Prince Gong was pleasant company.” For some reason, my response elicited light laughter from the crowd, but I did not know why. Even the emperor smiled at this.

  The emperor raised his hand and motioned for someone to come to his side. From behind an embroidered screen that was set behind the emperor’s throne, a woman emerged. Maybe it was her makeup, her elaborate hairstyle, or her ornate gown, but I thought this woman was the most beautiful I had ever seen. She would have put Lady Tang to shame. The woman bowed and then kneeled beside the emperor.

  “Imperial Concubine Yi,” the emperor said, addressing the beautiful woman. “I have brought a gift for you.”

  “Your Majesty is too kind to think of me,” Concubine Yi replied. She raised her head to look at me.

  This was the mother of the emperor’s son. Her eyes were large, and she fixed them on me. I was at once honored by her attention, but fearful. Her face was porcelain white except for a bit of pink in her cheeks. Her lips were painted red and the edges curved up slightly. It gave her a pleasant, though not too friendly, demeanor. Her green chaopao was embroidered with pink and cream peonies and couched with small, gold-embroidered phoenixes. Her sleeves and the bottom of the chaopao were embroidered with blue waves in a variety of hues. On two fingers of each of her hands, she wore nail protectors that were several inches long made of gold and encrusted with jewels. Her hair was coiled and wrapped around a flat board in the traditional Manchu style and decorated with fresh flowers and jewel butterflies.

  “This is the girl who sent you that beautiful fan in honor of my son,” the emperor said. “Her embroidery is quite unique. I knew that you would enjoy her services.”

  “Oh,” Concubine Yi replied. “How thoughtful. Though she seems rather young for a master needleworker.”

  The emperor nodded. “How old are you, Miss Yang?”

  “I am sixteen,” I replied. “But you are right. I am no master artist. I am shocked that my ugly embroidery work even caught your attention, Your Majesty.”

  “So humble,” he said with a smile.

  Concubine Yi stuck out her lower lip and pouted. “You call this a gift?” she asked. “She is just a child. My embroidery is probably more beautiful than hers.”

  “She is only being modest,” the prince spoke up. “I spoke to her teacher, the talented Lady Tang. She assured me that Miss Yang invented the double-sided embroidery technique and that no one else can embroider as well as she can.”

  “Do you think I would give you anything less than the best?” the emperor asked Concubine Yi.

  She looked at me for a long while, as if taking me all in. She sighed. “Her feet are bound. I don’t like it.”

  “Oh, are they?” the emperor asked.

  “She should unbind them,” Concubine Yi declared. “It is a horrid practice.”

  The emperor nodded and looked at me. “How would you feel about unbinding your feet?” he asked me.

  “I would do whatever is asked of me, Your Majesty,” I replied. He nodded, but he didn’t smile. I waited a short moment, and after no one replied, I continued. “However, if it was my choice I would leave them how they are. These tiny feet carried me from obscurity to your magnificent court. They are part of who I am.”

  The emperor laughed and clapped. “This girl speaks her mind and knows herself. If only my grandees were such honest men. Keep your bound feet, Miss Yang. They suit you.”

  I could hear murmurs ripple throughout the room. I glanced around and saw some men smiling, some scowling, some hid their mouths behind their large sleeves so no one could know what they were saying. The prince was trying hard not to smile, but I could see the edge of his mouth curling up. Concubine Yi did not look pleased. She did not look angry, but hurt.

  The emperor sat up and stretched his arms. “Is that all, brother? It is nearing mid-day.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the prince said with a bow.

  The emperor stood and everyone else in the room bowed as he stepped from the dais and out the front of the long building. I was shocked to see that he walked with a slight limp. How could the Son of Heaven, the Dragon, be lame?

  Then Concubine Yi and some other women who had also been sitting behind the screen left from a side entrance. After they were gone, everyone else was able to stand up and either leave or stay and talk. As I stood, I could barely feel my legs. All this kowtowing and kneeling was so uncomfortable.

  “Congratulations on finding your way here so quickly,” the prince said to me.

  I crossed my arms. “No thanks to you!” I said, angrily. “If you knew we were going to be separated, why didn’t you tell me what to do once I got here. What would you have done if I hadn’t found my way here?”

  “Why worry about things that didn’t happen?” He slapped my upper arm as he would one of his comrades. “Everything worked out.”

  “Yes, but…” I was about to explain how I had to give money to a shady man and was worried about the repercussions when the eunuch himself stepped up to us.

  “It was not your place to present her to the emperor!” he nearly shouted at the prince in his boyish voice.

  “Go away, Shun,” the prince said. “I don’t answer to you.”

  “You have to follow court protocol like the rest of us,” Shun snapped.

  “Get lost before I have you taken out and beaten,” the prince replied.

  The eunuch’s face turned red and his nostrils flared. He clearly wanted to yell at Prince Gong further, but he finally just turned and walked away.

  “Wait,” the prince said, stopping him. “Give it back.”

  Shun turned back to face the prince. “What do you mean?”

  “Whatever you took from Miss Yang to agree to bring her here. Give it back.”

  “You know how things work here, Prince Gong,” the eunuch grumbled.

  “All too well,” he replied, sticking out his hand.

  “You won’t be here to protect her all the time,” Shun said, slapping the coins into the prince’s hand. “She’ll need important friends like me if she is to survive in here.”

  The prince scoffed. “You’re nothing! You were hoping to introduce her to raise your own status. You cut off your own balls to be here, and she’s more important just by showing up. Crawl back to your rat hole.”

  The eunuch mumbled something under his breath as he slinked away. The prince couldn’t hide his smile. For some reason, he really enjoyed embarrassing that eunuch. When he looked at me, I made sure my displeasure showed on my face.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it is wise to make enemies on my first day,” I said.

  “Bah! Forget him. He’s nothing.”

  “But what am I?” I asked. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. What’s my position? Where’s my room? Where do I get food?”

  “Oh, right,” he said, as if he only realized that I was a total stranger to this world. “I don’t know. You are the first gōngnǚ I’ve ever taken notice of.”

  “Gōngnǚ?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Just what we generally call women who are not maids but not ladies either. Just a palace girl.”

  I sighed and rubbed my temple. It had been a long trip and long day. I began to realize just how tired I was.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I know who to ask.”

  I followed the prince through several buildings and down several walkways. The palace was exquisite and enormous. It was also very busy. It was like its own little city with men and women of various classes all coming and going. Coolies and cleaning ladies, eunuchs and grandees, concubines and princesses. Even palanquins bearing the most important of palace residents and visitors were being carried hither and thither. What a sight!

  As we passed through the imperial gardens, I heard the strangest sound, something like kaw-AWW kaw-AWW. I looked up and saw a creature from my dreams fly over my head, the most exquisite bird who ever lived, a blue peacock. I completely forgot I was supposed to be following the prince and followed the bird. It landed in a grassy area nearby and fanned its magnificent plumage. It walked around and pecked at the ground. I wanted to touch it, but when I got too close, it started to walk away. I sat on the grass and watched it in total awe.

  “What are you doing?” the prince asked, having come to my side.

  “I had no idea they even really existed,” I said. “I saw pictures, but I thought they had to be creatures of myth. Surely nothing so extraordinary could really exist in the world.”