Clockwork Samurai Read online

  Her maidservants remained in position and glanced at me nervously as I approached. Ignoring the protests, I started to push past when the doors swung open. One glimpse of the golden-robed figure inside, and I fell to my knees. The maidservants behind me did the same.

  “Is that you again, Miss Jin Soling?” the Emperor drawled.

  “Imperial Majesty,” I murmured, keeping my head down.

  My heart pounded as he approached. The Emperor never came to the harem. Protocol dictated his consorts be brought to the imperial bedchamber.

  “I never properly thanked you for your service yesterday.”

  He sounded sleepy, as if wading through a dream. I started as Yizhu leaned over to personally help me to my feet. Though it could be taken as insolent, I raised my eyes to his.

  His pupils had shrunken to two black pinpoints. My heart sank, disappointed.

  When not raised upon his throne, Yizhu presented a less than imposing figure. He was of average height and slight of build. Behind him, I only saw four guardsmen in his entourage.

  I realized I had stared at the Emperor for too long when his slack, contented expression suddenly hardened. “Does the harem physician have something to say to the Emperor?”

  Yizhu was standing close, crowding me in the narrow corridor. Around us, the rest of the gathering remained with their foreheads to the ground. The Emperor’s retainers stood back, silent as statues.

  “Nothing, Imperial Majesty.”

  “I don’t think I believe you,” he said slyly.

  He had backed me up against the opposite wall, but I didn’t dare put a hand up to stop him.

  “Imperial Majesty, I implore you.” I lowered my voice and forced it to remain steady. “There are others here, watching—”

  “So let them watch.” Yizhu’s smile was almost cruel as he fell into informal address. “I can do anything now, you know. I can have history rewritten.”

  The imperial court regularly condemned the opium trade, even though we were forced to allow it. Seeing Yizhu like this broke my heart. He had made a vow to fight the Yangguizi. He had promised to learn from this father’s mistakes, but a very different man stood before me now.

  “Opium is a . . . a dangerous remedy, Imperial Majesty,” I warned.

  “Have you ever tried it, Miss Jin?”

  My palms began to sweat as he leaned in even closer. “I haven’t—”

  “Isn’t it the way of things now? We must allow the poison inside, let it fester until we grow strong enough to expel it. Just like the Yangguizi growing rich in our ports.”

  I started to reply about foreign devils and how all of the imperial edicts prohibiting the sale of opium would amount to nothing if the Emperor himself were addicted, but I never had a chance to speak. Yizhu’s fervor cooled as quickly as it had come.

  “It’s wonderful,” he continued languidly. “The headaches, the pain, every single care goes away. I can appreciate simple pleasures once more: food, wine, beautiful women.”

  The heat of his breath fanned against my cheek. The Emperor caught my wrist as I tried to slip past, and I froze. His grip was iron around me, and he was the Emperor. To raise a hand against him meant death.

  “Radiant Highness.” A soft purr came from behind him. Over Yizhu’s shoulder, Imperial Concubine Li peeked out from the doorway. She held out her hand and beckoned to him playfully. That seemingly careless gesture communicated her status to everyone present. Yizhu was at her beck and call. “The Emperor’s most dutiful servant misses him dearly.”

  The Emperor dropped my hand as he turned to her, grinning. The drooping look of contentment took over his face once more. He went to her without a glance back. Relief flooded through me.

  As the Emperor took Imperial Concubine Li into his arms, she tossed a pointed look at me before the double doors were pulled shut.

  * * *

  By the time I returned to the shelter of the apothecary, I was exhausted, but there was no time for rest. A shipment had arrived from the trade bureau. A stack of crates had been deposited into my workroom, and it was a welcome distraction. Here was a problem I could solve. It didn’t involve power struggles or palace intrigue or a young Emperor’s whim. I scanned the manifest before settling in to work.

  The physicians’ court received a constant flow of spices, tribute teas and herbs from the provinces as well as a few rare remedies from the merchant ships. The more valuable shipments were usually snatched up by the head eunuchs and either kept for the Emperor’s private use or distributed to members of the Grand Council in exchange for goodwill.

  I was left to sort out the more common remedies. One of the crates was marked with an unusual seal. I didn’t recognize the trading house, and when I searched through the manifest, the contents were listed as tea. There was no record of purchase. This had been sent as a gift.

  Inside was a sack filled with dried flowers. When I pulled out a handful of the blossoms for a closer inspection, a rain of tiny black seeds scattered over the table. Yingsu poppies, the same flower that yielded opium.

  I ran my fingers over the petals, and a few flaked off. The curious thing was we had plenty of yingsu in our drawers. The plant had long been used for medicinal purposes. The flower and seeds, and even parts of the stalk, could be boiled down into a soup to dull pain or aid digestion.

  But somewhere along the way, it was discovered that the resin extracted from the seed pods was a hundred times more potent. And when the substance was smoked rather than swallowed, its darker, more addictive nature emerged.

  Why had this crate been sent when we had a steady supply of it? It wasn’t until I lifted the sack that I saw the woodcut engraving on the bottom of the crate. It was an ocean junk, triple-masted with battened red sails to catch the wind.

  I knew this ship. I had spent several weeks on board over a year ago. Apparently its captain hadn’t forgotten.

  I emptied out the rest of the sack and inspected every board and nail on the crate, searching for a message. There was none—Yang Hanzhu wouldn’t be so heavy-handed. He was wanted for treason. Any communication between us could put me in danger, yet he’d still managed to secretly smuggle a shipment into the Forbidden City.

  Yang had been a chemist in the Ministry of Science under my father. Everyone who knew him thought he was brilliant. He was also a bit of a scoundrel. Once he’d been loyal to my father, but now he was loyal to no one.

  The poppies lay in a pile on the worktable. They were the message. Opium came from a plant we had known and used for over a thousand years. It had been transformed into the black poison that now infected our country. And somehow, for reasons we didn’t yet understand, it had been transformed again.

  Yang was still searching for the answer to opium, to the addiction, and to the strange sickness we’d seen evidence of firsthand. The afflicted fell first into a deep sleep from which they couldn’t be roused. But if they did awaken, they became like wild animals. Pure instinct, unadulterated rage.

  When I’d first been installed in the palace, I’d written petitions to the Ministry of Science, to the trade commission. I sent accounts from Changsha about the opium sickness, for which I received no answer.

  I shuddered as I thought of how many doses of opium were being set to pipes at this very moment. How many addicts lounged inside opium dens scattered throughout the capital? Whorehouses, teahouses. The imperial palace itself. They all craved the black poison, breathing the smoke into their lungs. Inviting the demon inside.

  I had come to the capital hoping to make a difference, but I’d done nothing. Nothing at all.

  That evening, I was awoken by another messenger. The Emperor suffered from a headache and needed my services. I brewed the herbal potion and sent it on before crawling back into bed.

  For the rest of the night, I tossed and turned in my bed, waiting. I expected the Emperor’s ser
vant to return with an imperial decree that I was not allowed to refuse.

  The decree never came, but I was convinced one day it would. Not because I was particularly pretty or charming or clever. It would come because Yizhu was Emperor and I was a conquest. One that he could win.

  Chapter Three

  In the Forbidden City, there is always the danger of being swallowed whole. Of being buried deep and forgotten.

  That was how I felt when I sent a petition for an audience with the internal office of security the very next morning. When there was no reply, I sent another request the following day. And another the day after.

  It was like shouting from the bottom of a deep and narrow well.

  At one point, I even considered writing to Chen Chang-wei. Certainly he would listen to my situation. He would help me.

  In the end, I tore up the letter.

  A week passed before I received the summons from the head of security. The moment I had the letter in hand, I headed to the imperial guard headquarters. There I presented the document to the stone-faced guards out front, half expecting to be turned away. Without a word, they stepped aside.

  There were guardhouses stationed throughout the palace, but the central office handled the bureaucracy of managing the thousands of bannermen in the service of protecting the Emperor.

  The headquarter building was fashioned of dark wood, unpainted and lacking the gilt and ornamentation of the audience halls. When I was led into the headman’s office, however, it was more akin to a scholar’s study than a soldier’s hideout. A carved cherrywood desk anchored the room, and the walls were bare except for a map of the inner palace that spanned the far wall. Various sections were marked with colored flags.

  Headman Aguda adhered to the old Manchurian custom of retaining a single given name. He stood from his desk as I entered.

  “Miss Jin Soling,” he greeted.

  His height made his bow appear awkward, though he moved with a measured, almost stately grace. When I first met him, he’d held the rank of inspector and was part of the crown prince’s inner circle. A member of the Manchurian elite. Aguda was the one who had sought me out, looking to recover my father’s secrets.

  That last mission had given the empire a formula for gunpowder fuel, one that was currently used to power its engines. In return, Emperor Yizhu had officially cleared my father’s name, allowing our return to the capital. And Aguda was promoted to head of the imperial guard.

  So I wasn’t completely without allies within the Forbidden City. I wouldn’t call the headman a friend, but we had history.

  I wasn’t accustomed to seeing him in the robes of a ranking official. His embroidered square showed a tiger with claws bared, and his cap was set with an ostrich feather.

  “Do you realize that a petition within the inner palace typically takes weeks, if not months, to be processed?” he asked me, eyebrow raised.

  Aguda’s lips twitched as he tapped a hand against a stack of papers. I recognized my writing on the petitions. Whatever it was I had expected from this meeting, it wasn’t humor.

  “What is so urgent, Miss Jin, that you had to come see this humble servant?”

  “I came to express my sincere gratitude, Headman Aguda, for my current appointment. And to ask humbly if I may be reassigned.”

  He arched a thick eyebrow. “Reassigned? That hardly sounds like gratitude.”

  “I know, sir. And I apologize, but the current position no longer seems . . . appropriate.”

  It was impossible to say what I was truly afraid of aloud. Yizhu was Emperor, and we all served him, but I didn’t want to become a diversion, something to be used for the Emperor’s pleasure and then discarded.

  “I owe you a debt of gratitude,” he began quietly. “It is because of your valiant efforts that the Emperor saw fit to promote me. For that reason, I saw fit to help you in any way I could. A position within the inner palace, in close contact with the Emperor and the imperial court. Is that not a great honor?”

  “In close contact with the Emperor’s concubines,” I corrected.

  His eyes gleamed. “Don’t underestimate the importance of your work. Those women comprise the secret court in the palace, Miss Jin.”

  “It is a very important position, sir. But . . .”

  I could see the way Yizhu had looked at me, more with cold determination than interest. And how the imperial harem and palace eunuchs looked at me differently as a result of the emperor’s regard. I had become a player in their game.

  “This is not the fight I came here to fight,” I told Aguda boldly.

  “I thought your temperament would be well suited toward this assignment. You’re observant, levelheaded. Not quick to become involved in any disputes. It was only a matter of time before people came to trust you, and yet you yourself trust no one.”

  How had I not seen this before? “You wanted an informant in the inner palace.”

  His gaze pierced into me. “Nothing as insidious as you make it sound. It’s good to have eyes and ears everywhere. For security purposes.”

  “But—” My mind was spinning. “You never discussed any such plans with me. How would I ever know to report to you?”

  His lips twitched. “Are you not here now? Tell me, is there any truth to the rumors about the Emperor’s indulgences? His appetites in the bedchamber?”

  I stiffened. “I know nothing of it.”

  “Nonsense, Miss Jin. You know everything.” He rose from the desk and stretched to his full height. I had to tilt my head upward to meet his gaze.

  “I know nothing.”

  His eyes bore into me. For a moment, we were locked as if in combat. Inside, my heart beat so hard I thought I would faint, but outwardly I remained calm. A skill I had learned from my time within the palace.

  “Very good.” I thought I saw a smile crack through the hard line of his mouth. “It would be a serious offense to find an appointment I had secured was passing gossip.”

  The headman relaxed, but I couldn’t.

  “I don’t wish for you to be a spy, Miss Jin,” he said, coming to stand before me. “There is no effort needed on your part. It would be just like Canton.”

  Just like Canton. In Canton, Aguda had set me out as bait.

  My stomach knotted. I had the distinct feeling of being a frog in a well, able to see only the waters around me. “You deliberately assigned me to the harem to catch the Emperor’s eye?” I asked slowly.

  “As a favor. A young woman of marriageable age would find it a great opportunity. And our Emperor has shown himself to have a wandering eye. Granted, you are slightly older than most of the chosen concubines, but I figured it was only a matter of time.”

  I felt sick. Aguda had been trying to play matchmaker in some twisted fashion. “Please have me reassigned, Headman Aguda.”

  “And where do you suggest?” he replied coolly. “The physician’s position in the harem may not be to your liking at the moment, but some of your other pursuits have cost great men their reputations—and their lives.”

  Other pursuits? I was close enough to his desk now that I could see two stacks of papers arranged neatly on it. One contained my requests to come see him, but the other stack was also in my handwriting. It contained petitions I’d written nearly a year ago. Ones I assumed had been discarded.

  “Opium is an unfavorable endeavor,” he said gravely. “We all know what happened to Commissioner Lin when he tried to eradicate the drug in Canton.”

  The commissioner seized over twenty thousand chests of foreign opium and proceeded to burn it. And he’d started a war.

  Lin had later died in exile.

  As I glanced over my petition to warn the public of the tainted opium shipments, I noticed the character for epidemic had been blotted out with black ink.

  “An unfavorable endeavor,” Aguda echoed beneath his br
eath. “The harem is at least a harmless assignment.”

  “It’s not harmless.”

  If we didn’t have history, I wouldn’t have dared to turn my back on him then. I had to leave before I let my temper get the best of me.

  When I returned to Peking, I vowed I would not be bent to anyone’s purposes. If living within the palace walls required that one live in a web of intrigue, then I’d rather seek employment as a washerwoman along the riverbank.

  “You should reconsider, Miss Jin,” Aguda called after me. “Most would find it an honor to serve the Emperor. A consort enjoys much more privilege than a humble acupuncturist.”

  More privilege, but certainly not more freedom. Not in the way I saw it.

  “The Emperor has selected many suitable consorts for his harem,” I replied. “I can serve him best elsewhere.”

  I was a subject of the empire, but I belonged to myself, mind and body. I had earned that much. I had earned it.

  Chapter Four

  On nights of the new or round moon, the inhabitants of the palace flocked to the temples of Jingshan Park. I took advantage of the full moon to venture outside the walls to the grass-covered expanse to the north.

  A weight lifted from my shoulders the moment I was free of the Forbidden City. Of the iron cage and the legion of guards. Every breath felt easier, cleaner. I needed the sky above. I needed time to think.

  Carrying a lantern with me, I followed a steep trail to the northern peak. The rocky hill was man-made, as was the rest of the park. The imperial engineering corps had used earth dug up from the surrounding moat and transformed it into a mountain. A small-scale mountain, at least, dotted with shrines.

  A viewing pavilion rested at the peak of the slope. I climbed to the top and was happy to find it waiting, empty. From inside, I could see just beyond the palace to catch glimpses of surrounding Peking. The walls of the Summer Palace rose at the edge of the city borders. One palace wasn’t enough for our Emperors. This was another fortress. Another show of splendor.