10
The Forbidden City, 1858
One day I was sitting in a pavilion in the imperial garden watching the peacocks and practicing my double-sided embroidery when who should approach me but the emperor himself! I was so surprised I dropped my work as I dropped to my knees. The emperor laughed at me.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Just a bow at the waist is enough when we meet casually like this.”
I stood up but remained bent at the waist. The emperor laughed again and bent over to pick up my embroidery hoop.
“Ah, peacocks,” he said. He turned the piece over. “More peacocks! Wonderful!”
I smiled. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
He handed me the hoop. “Please stand upright. You are making me dizzy.”
I stood and accepted the hoop from him, but I kept my eyes downcast.
“Will you walk with me?” he asked.
I nodded, but thought it was awfully strange that he would want my company. We walked in silence for a moment around the garden. He appeared to be going nowhere in particular. He was being followed by no less than ten attendants.
“Are you happy here, Yaqian?” he finally asked.
“Oh, yes, Your Majesty!” I exclaimed. “Ever so much. Imperial Concubine Yi is such a kind mistress, and the palace is exquisite. And I have all the supplies I need to improve my embroidery.”
“I am glad of that,” he said. “Your skills bring honor to the court.”
I blushed. “Your Majesty is much too kind to me.”
“Not at all,” he said. We followed a few more little paths. I noticed some of his attendants seemed to have slipped away. I wondered if they were using his distraction as a chance to escape for a while.
“Can you embroider anything?” he asked.
“Very nearly, but not quite,” I explained. “I am still improving my technique. Running water, such as a waterfall, still gives me trouble, and humans, like a woman’s face, always look like furry animals to me, but I am confident that one day anything you see will be able to come to life under my needle.”
“That is exquisite,” he said.
We came to a small grotto, an area covered by lattice that had ivy and wisteria dangling from them. A pond filled with koi flowed through the middle. There were stone benches to sit on and marble pillars holding up the lattice. None of the emperor’s attendants had followed us inside, and I felt a heaviness in the pit of my stomach.
The emperor called me to his side as he stood at the edge of the pond and looked at the fish. I did so, but stood a couple of steps away from him. He then turned to me. I kept staring at the fish, which were swimming more frantically now, hoping I would toss them some treats.
“Yaqian,” the emperor said softly. “Look at me.”
I didn’t want to. It was forbidden for a woman, any woman, even his consorts, to look directly at him. My heart beat fast and it was hard to breathe. He reached out and lifted my chin. He leaned in, and I quickly shook my head from his hand and stepped back.
“Please, Your Majesty,” I said. “Forgive me. I should never have taken up so much of your time.”
“What?” he asked, reaching out and lightly gripping my arm. “You have done nothing wrong. I invited you to walk with me, remember?”
“Yes, but I should have refused,” I said. “I am a lowly servant and you are the emperor. I should not even be in your presence.”
He laughed as he gripped both of my arms and pulled me close to him. He wrapped his arms around me, but I didn’t hug him back.
“I can make you much more than a servant,” he whispered in my ear. He ran his hands down my sides and around my buttocks.
I gasped. No man had ever touched me in such a way before. And what did he mean he could make me more than a servant? I pushed his arms away and stepped back.
“Please, Your Majesty,” I said again. “I’m just an ignorant peasant, and I have no idea what you mean, but I am very happy in my position. I love Imperial Concubine Yi.”
“I love her too,” he said. “But you know how things are here. I have to spread my…my essence around.”
“Yes,” I said. “Among your wives and concubines. Among your Manchu women. I am a lowly Chinese. You should not speak to me, much less touch me.”
“I am the emperor,” he said, loudly, becoming annoyed with me. “I do what I want. And I want you.”
“I cannot!” I said. “I serve Imperial Concubine Yi. I would be betraying my mistress if I were to lay with her husband.”
“Where would you get an idea like that?” he asked.
“I…I don’t know…” I stammered. I knew the emperor could lay with any woman he wished, but I didn’t want one of those women to be me. I would never say it out loud, but the Limping Dragon was not the kind of man I wanted to give myself to, even if he was the emperor.
“It just seems wrong,” I said. I started to cry. I felt like an idiot, blabbering like a child because the Emperor of China wanted to take me as a lover. I wasn’t lying when I said I loved Concubine Yi. She was very good to me and I was happy in her service. I was more worried about hurting her than upsetting the emperor.
“How can you be so…” the emperor started, but he was interrupted by one of his attendants who had silently entered the grotto.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty, but we must head back. The council is waiting.”
The emperor sighed. He looked at me as if he wanted to say something, but then he just stormed off. I leaned against one of the pillars and wiped the tears from my face. On one hand, I felt relieved, but on the other, did I just make an enemy of the emperor?
I ran back to my room and locked the door. I didn’t want anyone to see me while I was upset, and I feared I would be upset for a while.
A little while later, there was a soft knock at my door. It was Lady Yun.
“Imperial Concubine Yi sent me to fetch you,” she said.
“Why?” I asked. “I cannot see her like this.”
“She already knows what happened,” Lady Yun said.
“How?” I asked. “Who told her?”
“You are never alone here, Yaqian,” she said. “Come, wipe your tears. You must go.”
I washed my face, but there was nothing I could do about my red-rimmed eyes. When I entered Concubine Yi’s audience hall, she dismissed all of the other attendants and motioned for me to sit near her. From one of the pockets in her sleeve, she pulled out the embroidery hoop I had been working on. I dropped it when His Majesty grabbed my arms and had forgotten it when I fled to my room.
“I heard what happened,” she said, handing me the hoop.
“Forgive me,” I said. “I never meant to hurt you. I am sorry I stole his attention.”
Concubine Yi let out a small laugh. “Stole his attention? Dear, we both know you did no such thing. You haven’t even seen him since you first arrived except at audiences. But he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about you since that first meeting,” she told me. “You see, us Manchu claim to hate the bound feet of you Han. We call it a barbaric, antiquated practice performed by uneducated people. But the truth is that Manchu men love it just as much as Han.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What do our bound feet have to do with any man?” I asked. “I was just told it was what we had to do to have a better life. It was part of being a woman.”
Imperial Concubine Yi gave me a confused look and shook her head. “Sometimes you really are stupid, Yaqian.”
I nodded.
“The reason your feet are bound has nothing to do with you or women or growing up. Men believe that by binding your feet, it forces you to walk in a way that tightens your…the muscles in your...” she sighed, as though annoyed with her inability, even in this personal setting, to speak freely. “They think it makes you a better lover. They also think that you can use your tiny feet to pleasure them.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I couldn’t believe that the wife of the emperor was having to explain this to me.
“We Manchu don’t do this,” she went on. “But our men still desire it. That is why they make us walk on the flowerpot bottom shoes, to create the same effect. But they don’t think it works as well, so they still take Chinese women to their beds.”
“You mean…the emperor…?” I couldn’t quite ask.
She nodded. “He loves the little feet of Chinese girls,” she whispered. “I know he has Chinese prostitutes brought to the palace in secret.”
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“It was why he brought you here,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, he did like your embroidery. He thought it was interesting and he does collect art, but it wasn’t until he realized you were from Changsha that he considered bringing you here. He knew most women in Changsha were Han, so you would likely have bound feet.”
“But you said he has women here already. Why go to such trouble?”
“The chicken girls are trouble. Sneaking them in and out. Riddled with diseases. Having to pay for their silence. But with you, having you here in the palace at his beck and call? Much easier.”
“Couldn’t he just bring any Han woman into the palace, make her a maid and have her near? I don’t understand.”
“It’s not that easy,” she said. “Have you ever seen another Han woman in the Forbidden City since you arrived?” I shook my head. “Exactly. You have to be Manchu to serve here. From the empress to the lowest gōngnǚ, you must be Manchu. You have to be quite exceptional to be a Han and be allowed to serve here.”
“So, my embroidery was exceptional enough,” I said.
“Exactly,” Concubine Yi said. “He wanted you for your feet – your embroidery just gave him the excuse.”
“So, what am I to do?” I asked. “I don’t want to be with him. I don’t want to betray you. I just want to be a master needleworker in your service.”
“You won’t betray me,” she said. “That is how things are here. All of the women in the Forbidden City are at his service, no matter what he asks.”
“But I don’t want to…” I said.
“Why not?” she asked. “I was younger than you when I was selected to serve the emperor. When he approaches you again, just do it.”
My heart sank. Is this what Prince Gong had been trying to warn me about? What would the prince think when he heard his brother had taken me for a lover?
It was only a few days later when I was approached again. Eunuch Shun, the first person who I had met when I arrived at the Forbidden City, the man who had tried to swindle me out of my coins, came to my rooms and announced, “His Imperial Highness requests your presence tonight. I will return this evening to collect you.”
Shortly afterward, an elderly maid arrived and helped me bathe, wrap my feet in new bindings, and dress. The bath was exquisite. The water was scalding hot and she used the sweetest smelling salts. She scrubbed my skin until it was pink and then rubbed me with cool goat milk before rinsing me with jasmine scented water one last time. She then rubbed my whole body with jasmine scented oils. She wrapped me in a silk robe, bound my feet with new silk bindings, and helped me put on a new pair of embroidered slippers. She combed and oiled my hair, but let it stay down, flowing freely. Apparently, that was how the emperor liked it.
Just after dusk, a sedan chair arrived for me. I climbed into it and held my breath for almost the entire ride to the emperor’s quarters. I remembered the chicken girls who accompanied Prince Gong’s troops when he came to collect me in Changsha. Was I now any different from those girls? Going to the bed of a man I didn’t care for in order to not lose my position? I knew that as my chair passed by the palaces of the wives and concubines, all the women of the inner court would know I was inside and where I was going. The thought made my stomach turn and made me feel ashamed. I wanted the floor of the chair to open up and swallow me.
The sedan chair came to a stop. Shun opened the curtains and helped me step out. He then led me up the stairs and into the emperor’s palaces. I followed him through several rooms and down some hallways. It was like a maze. I was sure I would never be able to find my way out again on my own.
He finally took me to a bedroom and led me to the bed. He pulled back the gauze curtains and motioned for me to sit down. “Stay here,” he commanded. Then he left.
I was examining a painting on the wall when I heard the door open again. The emperor entered with several attendants. The attendants helped him remove his headdress, his heavy outer robes, and his shoes. They brought him a bowl of water and a cloth so he could wash his hands and face. After he was done, they all bowed and backed out of the room.
The emperor walked over to the bed and smiled at me. “I am glad to see you again, Yaqian,” he said kindly.
I slowly breathed out and said, “I am glad you are not angry with me, Your Majesty.”
He laughed as he sat on the bed next to me. “No, silly girl. I know you are young, and I can be an imposing figure. Forgive me for startling you that day in the garden.”
I only shook my head and averted my eyes.
He reached out and lifted my chin, as he had done in the garden. “Here, we need no such formalities,” he said. “You are to look at me as a man, not an emperor.”
“I don’t think you could ever be less than you are,” I said.
The emperor laughed again. “You are a clever girl.” He placed his hand on my leg and I felt my cheeks go hot. “You are also a pleasing girl,” he said.
“I don’t think you will find much pleasure in me, Your Majesty,” I barely whispered. I was so scared I could hardly talk. “I am just a stupid country girl.”
The emperor ran his hand down my leg and lightly touched my foot. “Oh, I am sure you know enough,” he said. He stood up and waved me toward the head of the bed, where there were many pillows piled up. “Sit up against the headboard,” he commanded.
I did so and he reclined long ways at my feet. He gently touched and petted my feet while still in their shoes.
“How old were you when they were bound?” he asked.
“I was only six,” I said.
“I bet you were a sweet and delicate little girl,” he said as he started to undo the ribbons around the top of one of my shoes.
I looked up at the bed’s canopy. “Actually I was very naughty,” I said. “My mother beat me regularly. When they wanted to bind my feet, I ran away and…”
“You dare contradict me?” he asked, slapping my foot.
I cried out in pain and instinctively pulled my feet away from him. Anger flashed in his eyes and he jumped up, lunged at me, and pulled one of my feet back toward him. “I am the emperor!” he yelled. “You will still respect me!”
I wanted to point out that he had told me to treat him like any other man, but I bit my tongue. He motioned for me to stretch my other leg back out and he lay at my feet again.
“I forget you have not been with a man before,” he said. “You are still an innocent, though you have a feisty streak in you.”
I sighed, relieved that he was not angry anymore.
He resumed undoing the ribbons around my shoes. He removed both of the shoes and sniffed them. Since I had just bathed and washed my feet, I suppose they smelled of jasmine and not of rotting flesh as they sometimes did if I went too long without washing my feet. He then looked at the images on the shoes.
“You embroidered these yourself?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied simply.
“Your skills have greatly improved,” he said. “The pieces you sent to celebrate the birth of my son, they were not very good, you know.”
“I know,” I said.
“They were obviously the work of an amateur,” he went on.
“Obviously,” I agreed.
“Except for the double-sided piece. If it had been a one-sided piece, it also would not have been counted among the works of masters, but I could tell it was special when I saw the other side.”
“Your Majesty has a keen eye for art,” I said.
He laid the shoes aside and shrugged. “It is just womanly art,” he said. “It will not stand the test of time like a painting or poetry, but it is aesthetically pleasing.”
“I have embroidered poems by women,” I said. “I could recite them for you.”
He shook his head as he ran his fingers up and down my still bound feet. At one point, he bumped my big toe on my left foot and I flinched. “Does it hurt?” he asked.
I nodded. “They always hurt at least a little bit,” I said.
He started to undo the silk bindings around one of my feet. “Do they hurt less when the bindings are removed?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He untied the ribbons and then quickly unfurled the silk bands from my feet. I was quite embarrassed. Bound feet were considered the most intimate part of a woman’s body. We kept them hidden inside tiny shoes and behind long skirts and pants. Even in erotic paintings of naked men and women, the women still wore their shoes. Even though I was still wearing my robe, I felt completely bare before him. This was the sort of intimacy usually shared between a husband and wife. I wasn’t sure why it was this way. I did not receive any pleasure from his enjoyment of my feet. Indeed, whenever I saw Prince Gong, I felt tingling and butterflies in a completely different part of my body. Feelings I didn’t have for the emperor. Would Prince Gong want to enjoy my feet in this way as well? I hoped not. Not that I would ever have such an opportunity with the prince, but I could still dream.
I was so lost in my thoughts of Prince Gong I had almost forgotten that the emperor was still playing with my feet. It wasn’t until I felt the cold wetness of his tongue on my toes that I was brought back to the moment. I wrinkled my nose as I watched him and tried not to flinch. He kissed the arches of my feet and caressed my ankles. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t ask how I was feeling or what I wanted. He had no interest in me aside from my feet. Did he make Concubine Yi feel this worthless?
The emperor then sat up and opened his robe. For the first time, I saw a naked man, and he was fully aroused. He was breathing heavily. “Do you know what to do?” he asked. I shook my head. He sighed, annoyed. “They should teach you what to do when they bind you. Otherwise, what is the point?” I couldn’t argue with him. I had been wondering why we had our feet bound my whole life. If this was the reason why, it was truly disgusting.
The emperor took hold of my ankle and touched the big toe of my foot to his member. He groaned as he ran my toe up and down the shaft. “Keep doing that,” he whispered as he let go of my foot. He leaned back a bit and moaned as I touched him. I couldn’t believe he was getting pleasure from being touched with my feet, but I was a bit jealous. I wished Prince Gong would touch me in all kinds of ways.
The emperor then took hold of both of my ankles and bent my knees so that my feet came together at about the height of his waist and formed a small opening between the arches. My robe fell open and with my legs akimbo I could not cover myself. I tried not to think about the fact that he could see my private area on display. But the emperor did not seem interested in that part of my body. He ran his fingers around the arches of my feet. “Whoever bound your feet did a good job,” he said. “They are a little big. I have had women with feet half your size, but your arches are very well formed and your toes have not fallen off.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, unsure of what else to say. I am sure that he would not appreciate talk of how Mother beat me to force me to let her bind them. Or of how the pain was so excruciating during those first few weeks I vomited on regular occasion. It seemed to me that the emperor lived in a fantasy. He licked the arches of my feet with no thought to what I endured in order for him to receive such perverse pleasure.
He then put his member into the hole formed by my arches. He moved himself in and out of the hole, slowly at first, and then faster. He griped my feet firmly, which hurt, but I did my best not to cry out. He went faster and grabbed my feet harder. He was forcing the hole my feet formed smaller and smaller, holding my feet tighter and squeezing them together. He groaned and grunted as he slammed my feet into his pelvis with each thrust. I leaned back and stared at the canopy while I gripped the bedding and tried not to scream out in pain. Tears began streaming down my face. I finally could no longer bite my lip hard enough to keep from begging him to stop. But my pain seemed to arouse him further and he yelled as he finally achieved satisfaction. I felt warm goo drip onto my feet.
The emperor then got off the bed and wrapped his robe around himself. He poured himself a cup of wine. I simply laid there on the bed in shock from what had just happened. My feet were throbbing and I was scared to move.
“Shun!” the emperor called out.
Shun emerged from a corner of the room. I didn’t even realize he had been there the whole time. Shun approached the emperor and then kneeled.
“Take her back and then clean this up so I can retire,” the emperor commanded.
Shun nodded. He brought a damp, warm cloth over and wiped my feet. He then took my hand and helped me from the bed. He collected my silk bindings but not my shoes. I reached for them, but he stopped me. “No,” he said. “His Majesty will keep those.”
The one time I had tried walking without shoes or bindings was painful enough. But trying to walk without the bindings and after the beating they had just taken was like walking on hot coals. I leaned on Shun as I tried to walk on my heels out of the room. Once we exited His Majesty’s presence, however, I could no longer pretend to be strong. My legs collapsed under me and Shun picked me up. He was surprisingly strong. He carried me back through the emperor’s palace to the waiting sedan chair. We were both silent as we rode back to my quarters.
When we arrived, he carried me inside. The maid who had helped me earlier was waiting for me. Shun put me in a chair and the maid rushed over with a small tub of hot water. As I felt the warmth of the water rush over my battered feet and surge through my body, I finally felt free enough to cry. I cried so hard I could not stop. The pain, the embarrassment, the shock of what I had learned about men that night was more than I could handle. I knew that Shun was waiting for a gift of coins from me. I motioned to a small table beside my bed. Shun opened it and brought me my coin purse. I reached in and pulled out several coins. I watched his face as I handed them to him.
“This is for your service tonight,” I said. His eyes lit up, so I knew I had paid him enough. He turned to leave, but I grabbed his sleeve. I pulled out more coins and placed them into his hand. “And this is to make sure it never happens again,” I said.
Shun nodded his understanding. While the emperor could demand my presence again, it was Shun who usually kept the emperor’s conjugal calendar. If one of the emperor’s women wanted a night with him, it was Shun who made the arrangements. Shun could encourage or discourage the emperor to sleep with certain women on certain nights, usually by lying about who was in her moon phase. Hopefully, Shun would do his best to dissuade the emperor from wanting to fondle my feet again.
A few days later, I saw Prince Gong walking through the inner court. I didn’t want to see him. I was too ashamed. As I gathered my things to leave, though, he approached me. At first neither of us said anything. Eventually my emotions got the better of me and I began to cry. He pulled me to him and held me in his arms.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” I asked.
“I wanted to,” he said. “I didn’t know how. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“I feel so worthless,” I said. “I thought I was being honored by being brought here. I was the greatest embroidery girl in China. But I am nothing, nothing but a chicken girl!”
“No,” he said looking at me. “You are not worthless. You are wonderful. Smart and beautiful and so talented! This is…this situation is nothing. Life will go on and one day we can forget it ever happened.”
“We?” I asked. “What are we? What are we doing? You have a wife, two wives! I am friends with Lady Yun.”
“That is just my duty as a prince,” he said. “I don’t have any feelings for her, for them.”
“You should,” I said. “You should do right by them. Lady Yun loves you.”
“I know,” he said. “She is a good woman. Perhaps if I had never met you…”
I shook my head. “What now?” I asked. “What if the emperor sends for me again? I couldn’t bear it.”
“I don’t think he will,” he said. “The emperor has no time for women right now. The British attacked the Dagu Forts. We are at war with them and their allies, the Americans, the French. And we are still trying to hold the Taiping at bay. A revolt by the Miao people broke out in Guizhou, west of Hunan. The Hui minority in the southern province of Yunnan are inciting people there to revolt as well. The emperor’s country is rotting from the inside.”