China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

If the empress, his official wife, had been able to give the Son of Heaven children, things would have been different. But for some reason the empress, who was a gentle, rather timid young woman, seemed unable to have them. So it was up to the concubines.

I’d heard that, like most of the palace concubines, the Noble Consort Yi came from a noble Manchu clan—the Yehe Nara, in her case—though her father hadn’t amounted to much. “She isn’t beautiful,” people said, “but she’s clever.” When her father hadn’t troubled to get her a teacher, she’d taught herself to read and write. The emperor liked to talk to her. And most important of all, she’d given him a son.

“I hear she is a charming lady,” I said softly.

“Yes,” he answered. “When she wants to be. Just don’t cross her, that’s all.” As we hurried along, he told me more. “The servant who does her nails broke one. So she’s had the girl beaten.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, the girl wasn’t strong enough to take it.” He shook his head. But then he brightened. “Don’t worry,” he added, “you’ll be all right.”

No wonder no one wanted to take the girl’s place.

“How do I address her?” I asked him. “Am I supposed to kowtow?”

“Just call yourself her slave and bow low.” He gave me a nod. “She won’t be testing your etiquette. All she wants is her nail fixed.”

The concubines lived in a compound of several little palaces, each with its own courtyard, on the west side of the emperor’s private apartments. Shaking Leaf led the way. He knew all the shortcuts. We went through corridors with gilded walls and heavy-beamed ceilings, down open passageways with red walls and golden gateways, through courtyards where curving yellow-tiled roofs gracefully overhung their sides. I noticed ornamental trees in many of them. They say the huge central spaces of the Forbidden City are treeless because the emperors were afraid of assassins hiding behind tree trunks. But there were all manner of fragrant and flowering trees in the smaller palaces.

Finally we came through a gateway with a green lintel and found ourselves in a long rectangular courtyard, with apartments to the left and right. Some of the doors were open, and I could see silk-covered beds in curtained alcoves inside.

There were half a dozen ladies in the courtyard, attended by a couple of eunuchs. The ladies were all dressed in long silk Manchu gowns, with slits down the sides, and Manchu platform shoes that made them look even more tall and elegant. I noticed several Pekinese palace dogs waddling around. But the ladies were looking nervous. There was a swing hanging from a tree bough. No one was sitting in it.

Shaking Leaf led me towards the hall at the end. The central doorway was open. On either side of it stood one of the big bronze water tubs they keep in every palace in case of fire. Shaking Leaf stepped into the hall in front of me. I watched him bow low and murmur a few words. Then it was my turn.

“Your slave attends you, Highness,” I said quietly. Then I knelt. He’d told me only to bow, but I wanted to kneel.

“Get up and let me look at you,” said a voice—very clear; quite pleasant in fact. So I stood and raised my eyes towards the Noble Consort Yi.

—

I’ve met only a few people in my life whom I’d call superior beings. Even in palaces most of them aren’t. But she was. I could see it at once. And I could see how she’d done it.

Most women try to make themselves look pretty with makeup. They want small features and doe eyes. They smile. They haven’t a thought in their heads. It’s what the men want, so you can’t really blame them. Please the men—and your mother-in-law—and you’ll survive. But this young woman was different. She was sitting bolt upright on a wooden armchair, still as a Buddha. I could see the square white platforms under her embroidered shoes, and then I realized something else. Her feet were tiny. You’d have thought they were bound, except that she was a Manchu, so they couldn’t have been.

Her gown was the color of plum blossom, which signifies inner strength. As well as the borders, which were a shade darker, the gown had a pattern of stripes and open squares, each side matching the other. And this bold effect was continued above. For while her hair was parted in the middle and pulled tightly back, in the usual Manchu manner, it wasn’t wound around a big fan-shaped comb on the back of her head, as with the other ladies, but around a single horizontal wooden bar above her head, which she hadn’t even decorated with flowers.

Instead of trying to look pretty, the Noble Consort Yi had created an ensemble like a perfectly constructed Chinese character: complex yet strong. And she was perfectly controlled, her emotions contained. Every gardener knows: Contain a space inside a wall and it seems larger. Contain a character, and its symmetry grows fearsome. Clearly she understood all this. She knew how to look at herself from the outside, to create a design of which she was only a part. That is style, and art.

People said her face was plain. What did they know? Her face was oval. Her features were certainly too heavy to be called pretty, but they were perfectly regular. She wore long heavy earrings. Her chin was firm. She knew her own mind. Did something in her mouth suggest she might like to be kind? Perhaps. But her dark amber eyes belonged to an older woman—cautious, watchful. This woman is brave, I thought, but careful.

Her eyes took me in. “Have you experience with manicure?”

“Your slave is not a manicurist, Highness,” I replied. “But I am skilled in all kinds of lacquer work. I am sure I could apply manicurist’s lacquer well enough to hold your broken nail.”

She gazed