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horseracing, autumn hunting. For six generations the Manchu emperors carried on the tradition, until my husband Hsien Feng. It would be a dream come true for me to see Tung Chih mount his horse one day.

    "I depart for Wuchang this evening." Yung Lu stood in front of me.
    "What for?" I asked, upset by the suddenness of the news.
    "Warlords in Jiang-hsi province have demanded the right to command private armies."
    "Don't they already do so?"
    "Yes, but they want the formal sanction of the court," Yung Lu replied. "And of course they not only look to avoid taxes, they expect additional funding from the court."
    "It is a buried issue." I turned my head away. "Emperor Hsien Feng rejected the proposal long ago."
    "The warlords mean to challenge Emperor Tung Chih, Your Majesty."
    "What do you mean?"
    "A rebellion is in the making."
    I looked at Yung Lu and understood.
    "Can you leave the matter to Tseng Kuo-fan?" I felt uneasy about letting Yung Lu go to the frontier.
    "The warlords will consider the consequences more seriously if they know they are dealing directly with you."
    "Is this Tseng Kuo-fan's idea?"
    "Yes. The general suggested that you take advantage of your recent victories in court."
    "Tseng Kuo-fan wants me to bear more blood," I said. "Yung Lu, General Tseng would pass his 'Head-Chopper' name to me, if that is what you mean by my recent victories. The thought does not appeal to me." I paused and emotion filled my throat. "I want to be liked. Not feared."
    Yung Lu shook his head. "I agree with Tseng. You are the only person the warlords fear today."
    "But you know how I feel."
    "Yes, I do. But think of Tung Chih, Your Majesty." I looked at him and nodded.
    "Let me go and straighten out the matter for Tung Chih," he said.
    "It is not safe for you to go." I became nervous and began to speak fast. "I need your protection here."
    Yung Lu explained that he had already made the arrangements and that I would be safe.
    I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye.
    Without looking at me, he asked for forgiveness and was gone.

4
    It was the spring of 1868 and rain soaked the soil. Blue winter tulips in my garden began to rot. I was thirty-four years old. My nights were filled with the sound of crickets. The smell of incense fluttered over from the Palace Temple, where the senior concubines lived. It was strange that I still didn't know all of them. Visits were purely ceremonial inside the Forbidden City. The ladies spent their days carving gourds, raising silkworms and doing embroidery. Images of children appeared in their needlework, and I continued to receive clothing made for my son by these women.
    My husband's younger wives, Lady Mei and Lady Hui, were said to have met with a secret curse. They spoke the words of the dead, and they insisted that their heads had been soaked in the rain throughout the season. To prove their point, they took down their headpieces and showed the eunuchs where water had seeped through to the roots of their hair. Lady Mei was said to be fascinated by images of death. She ordered new bed sheets of white silk and spent her days washing them herself. "I want to be wrapped in these sheets when I die," she said in an operatic voice. She drilled her eunuchs in the practice of wrapping her in the sheets.
    I dined alone after the day's audience. I no longer paid attention to the parade of elaborate dishes and ate from the four bowls An-te-hai placed in front of me. They were usually simple greens, bean sprouts, soy chicken and steamed fish. I often took a walk after dinner, but today I went straight to bed. I told An-te-hai to wake me in an hour because I had important work to do.
    The moonlight was bright, and I could see the calligraphy of an eleventh-century poem on the wall:
How many flurries or squalls can spring stand

Before it will have to return to its fount?

One is afraid

Spring flowers fade too soon.

They have dropped

Petals

Impossible to count.

Fragrant grass stretches

As far as the