Free The Last Empress by Anchee Min Page A

understood the man."
    Yung Lu looked skeptical.
    "An-te-hai was an expert in court etiquette and dynastic laws," I continued. "He would never have violated them. He knew the consequences. Are you telling me that he asked to die?"
    "Look at the facts, please, and then ask how they tell otherwise," Yung Lu said quietly. "An-te-hai did something he shouldn't have. I am
sure you're right that he knew the consequences. In fact, he must have contemplated the result of his action before committing himself to it. This makes the case complicated. You can't deny that An-te-hai offered his enemy a chance to eliminate him." Yung Lu looked intensely at me. "Why did he make himself a target?"
    I felt lost and shook my head.
    Yung Lu requested permission to assemble a team of professional investigators. Within a month, a detailed report was presented to me. Besides Governor Ting, the witnesses included An-te-hai's fellow eunuchs, boatmen, shop owners, dressmakers, local artists and prostitutes.

    The weather had been favorable when An-te-hai sailed down the Grand Canal. The eunuch accomplished his mission at the factories in Nanking, where the silks and brocades were woven for the upcoming Imperial wedding. An-te-hai also inspected the progress of the gowns Nuharoo and I had ordered, as well as those for Tung Chih and his new wives and concubines. An-te-hai then visited the grave of his hero, the Ming navigator Cheng Ho. I could only imagine his excitement.
    I vividly remembered the moment An-te-hai came to bid me farewell. He was dressed in a splendid floor-length green satin robe with a pattern of ocean waves. He looked handsome and full of energy. I had great hope that this might be a new beginning for him.
    Only a few months before, An-te-hai had gotten married. It was the talk of Peking. For the eunuch population, An-te-hai set an example of hope that they, too, might be redeemed from their status. Mentally, marriage might somehow reinstate their manhood and bring them peace. But things had not gone well.
    An-te-hai moved away from the eunuchs' quarters to live with his four wives and concubines. Both he and I hoped that his new companions would lift his spirits. He could have had maidens from good families, since he was offering a fortune in dowries, but he purchased women from brothels. I suppose he thought they would share an understanding of suffering and might better accept, or at least be sympathetic to, what he couldn't provide as a husband. An-te-hai purposely avoided picking the pretty women. He looked especially for those who had survived the abuse of men. Wife number one was a twenty-six-year-old who was very ill and had been left to die in her brothel.
    It was difficult to compliment An-te-hai's ladies when he brought them to me. They looked like sisters, and their facial expressions were

dull. They snatched cookies from the tray and loudly slurped their tea.
    A month or so after An-te-hai's wedding, he moved back to the Forbidden City. The chief eunuch made no mention of his life at home. But everyone except me seemed to know exactly what had happened. From Li Lien-ying I learned that An-te-hai's wives had failed to meet his expectations. The women were rude, loud and unreasonably demanding. They took pleasure in ridiculing his shortcomings. One of them ran away to have an affair with a previous client. When An-te-hai found out, he went after the wife and beat her almost to death.
    On the day An-te-hai departed on his buying trip, his recent troubles seemed a distant memory. But still I worried for him. The journey was long, the undertaking huge.
    "Be happy for me, my lady," he reassured me. "I feel like a fish going back to its home spring."
    "It's a three-month trip. Maybe you can start looking again for a wife," I teased.
    "A decent one this time. I'll take your advice and bring back a girl from a good family."
    We parted at the port on the Grand Canal where a procession of junks waited. An-te-hai stood on one of the