Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [69]
The eunuchs taught the birds to sing, talk and do tricks. Most of the birds were exotic and had funny names, such as Scholar, Poet, Doctor and Tang Priest. Those who performed were rewarded with crickets and worms. Those who didn’t were starved. There were pigeons too. These were all white and allowed to fly freely. An-te-hai’s favorite hobby was training pigeons. He tied whistles and bells on the birds’ ankles, then let them go. They circled above my palace producing lovely sounds. When the wind was strong the sounds made me think of ancient music.
There was one highly intelligent parrot An-te-hai named Confucius. The bird could recite three-character phrases from the San Tzu Ching. For example, it said, “Men were kind-natured when they were born.” An-te-hai gave Confucius to Chief Eunuch Shim as a birthday gift, and he in turn presented it to Emperor Hsien Feng as his birthday gift, and then the Emperor rewarded me with the bird. By that time the bird didn’t know what it was talking about. It garbled a word, which twisted the meaning. What the parrot Confucius was now saying was “Men were evil-natured when they were born.” I wondered if this was the work of His Majesty. I told An-te-hai to spare the bird from correction.
I also loved the peacocks An-te-hai raised. Peacocks roamed everywhere in my palace. An-te-hai trained them to follow me. He called them “my Imperial ladies.” They lived and bred in my garden. When An-te-hai saw me step out, he would blow a whistle and the peacocks would gather and greet me. It was wonderful. The birds made a kind of cackling noise that sounded as if they were chatting. If they were in the right mood they would open their blue and green “dresses” and compete to show off their beauty.
“May luck stay with you, my lady.” An-te-hai greeted me with deep bows this morning.
“May luck stay with you!” Other eunuchs, ladies in waiting, maids and even the chefs echoed the sentiment in every corner of the palace —everybody knew by now that I had become His Majesty’s favorite.
“Has the morning boat gone out on the canal yet?” I asked An-te-hai. “I’d like to visit the temple on Prospect Hill.”
“You can go anywhere, anytime, my lady,” An-te-hai said. “This morning Emperor Hsien Feng has ordered that you be sent to him every night. You are on top of the Forbidden City, my lady. If you wish, the court will make a petrified tree bloom and a rotten vine climb.”
It was from the top of Prospect Hill that the secret, tranquil, elegant Imperial capital of Peking was best revealed. The hill was actually an artificial mound built to obstruct the descent of the noxious and unpropitious spirits of the north onto the Forbidden City. From its crest the city looked like a magical forest filled with flowering trees and shrubs, more wooded than the countryside itself. Through the foliage the gleaming old yellow-gold tiles showed, and also the bright enameled temple roofs, gatehouses and palaces. The scarlet and emerald pavilions exhibited their fantastically ornate and upturned eaves.
Standing on top of the hill, I was overwhelmed by the idea that I had been blessed by celestial energy. I had been made love to by the Son of Heaven. More important, it was continuing to happen.
As I took a deep breath of fresh air, the golden roof of the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility caught my eye. I remembered the jealous elderly concubines. I remembered the way they stared at me like hungry vultures. One story An-te-hai told would not leave my mind: the fate of a favorite concubine of the Ming Dynasty after the Emperor died. She was trapped in a court conspiracy orchestrated by fellow concubines, and she was buried alive.
I received an unexpected guest: Nuharoo. She had never visited before. I was sure that it had to do with Hsien Feng’s spending his nights with me. I had no doubt that her eunuchs spied for her, as An-te-hai spied for me.
Nervous but without panic, I greeted her.
Standing like a gorgeous magnolia, she performed her greeting