Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [131]
I held Tung Chih while we slept. In my dreams I heard horses champing at the bit. Fear woke me like a strange attack. Sweat would gather and soak my shirt. My scalp was constantly wet. My senses became heightened to certain things, like Tung Chih’s breath and the noises around the tent, and deadened to others, like hunger. Though we stayed in separate tents, Emperor Hsien Feng would appear in front of me like a ghost in the middle of the night. He stood there in dry-eyed misery. I wondered if I was also losing my mind.
It was close to evening and we decided to break for a meal. That afternoon His Majesty had experienced a terrifying coughing fit. Blood drooled from the corners of his mouth. The doctor said that it was bad for him to ride in the palanquin. But we had no choice. Eventually we stopped in order to still his cough.
At dawn I looked out from the tent. We were close to Jehol, and the landscape was of extraordinary beauty. The ground was covered with clover and wildflowers, and the gentle hills were thick with brush. The autumn heat was tolerable compared to Peking. The fragrance of mountain dandelions was sweet. After the morning meal we were on the road again. We passed through fields where the grass was waist-high.
Whenever Tung Chih was with me I tried to be strong and cheerful. But it wasn’t easy. When the old palaces of Jehol appeared on the horizon, we all rolled out of the palanquins and got down on our knees. We thanked Heaven we had made it to this place of temporary refuge. The moment Tung Chih was lifted from the chair he took off after wild rabbits and squirrels, which skittered away from him.
We hurried to reach the great gates. It was like entering a dream-land, a scene from a faded painting. Hsien Feng’s grandfather Chien Lung had built Jehol in the eighteenth century. Today the palace stood like an aged beauty whose makeup was smeared. I had heard so much about this place that the view was already familiar to me. Jehol was more of a work of nature than the Forbidden City. Over the years the trees and bushes had grown into each other. Ivy had spread from wall to wall and up the sky-high trees, where it dangled in luxuriant vines. The furniture in the palaces was made of hardwood, exquisitely carved pieces inlaid with jade and stones. The dragons on the ceiling panels were of pure gold, the walls resplendent in shimmering silk.
I adored the wildness. I wouldn’t have minded living in Jehol. I thought it would be a good place to raise Tung Chih. He could learn the Bannermen’s trade. He could learn to hunt. I wanted so much for him to grow up on horseback as his ancestors did. I wished I didn’t have to remind myself that we were in exile.
Jehol was a great silent place. The bleached light of the sun reflected softly from its tiled roofs. The courtyards were paved with cobblestones. Doors were flanked by thick walls. Since Chien Lung’s death half a century before, most of the palaces had stood vacant and they smelled of mold. Battered by decades of wind and rain, the exteriors seemed to fade into the landscape. The original color had been sand yellow; now it was brown and green. Inside, mildew covered the ceilings and darkened the corners of the spacious rooms.
The royal families swept into Jehol and the place came to life. The slumbering halls, courtyards and buildings were wakened to the echo of human voices and footfalls. Doors were pushed open to the sound of scraping wood and metal. Rusty window locks broke off when we attempted to open them. The eunuchs did their best to remove the must and grime of years.
I was given an apartment next to Nuharoo’s on one side of the main palace. The Emperor occupied the largest bedroom, of course, right in the middle. His office, which was called the Hall of Literary Zest, was next to the apartments of Su Shun and the other grand councilors on the other side of the palace. Nuharoo watched over Tung Chih while I attended Hsien Feng. Our schedules