Laoye stepped up and, with a bow to his superior, said, “Eminence, business first. His Excellency Yuan Shikai is waiting at Court for your response.”
Magistrate Qian mopped his brow with the sleeve of his robe and tidied his beard, which my wife had ruffled. He coughed, sounding more like a goat than a man, and then composed himself, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and, with obvious reluctance, bowed to my dieh. “Unless I am mistaken, you must be the renowned Grandma, Zhao Jia.”
My dieh, sandalwood prayer beads in hand, stood up and replied smugly, “I am your public servant Zhao Jia, and since I am holding a string of prayer beads that were a gift from the Empress Dowager Herself, you’ll forgive me for not kneeling before a local official.”
Once the words were out, he lifted the sandalwood beads, which looked to be weightier than a chain of steel, over his head, as if waiting for something to happen.
Magistrate Qian took a step backward, brought his legs together, and straightened his wide sleeves. Then, with a swish of those sleeves, he fell to his knees and banged his head on the floor. “I, Magistrate of Gaomi County, Qian Ding,” he called out, his voice cracking, “wish Her Royal Highness, our Empress Dowager, a long, long life!”
The ritual of respect completed, Magistrate Qian scrambled to his feet and said, “This humble official would never presume to trouble the revered Grandma on his own. I come on behalf of the Governor of Shandong, Excellency Yuan Shikai, who requests an audience.”
Dieh’s reaction to the invitation was to finger his beads, ignoring the request, and gaze at the gecko on the wall. “Honorable Magistrate,” he said, “the sandalwood chair upon which I have been sitting was a gift from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, and the custom is to treat any object from His Royal Personage as if it were the Emperor Himself.”
Magistrate Qian’s face turned the color of the darkest sandalwood. Flames of anger seemed to burn in his chest, but he managed to keep them from bursting forth. I thought my dieh had gone a bit overboard by forcing the Magistrate to kneel, an act that could be seen as turning the world upside down, reversing the order of official and subject. But to do it twice? I think you’re flirting with danger, Dieh. Niang said it best: The Emperor is a mighty force, but a distant one. A County Magistrate is a low-ranking official, but local. It would not be hard for him to find an excuse to make our lives difficult. Magistrate Qian is not someone you want to provoke, Dieh. I told you how he broke my friend Xiaokui’s leg just because he spat at the Magistrate’s palanquin.
Magistrate Qian rolled his eyes. “When did the Emperor sit in this chair?” he asked frostily.
“On the eighteenth day of the twelfth month in the Ji-Hai year of 1899 at the Imperial Residence in the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity. When the Empress Dowager heard Grand Steward Li’s report on how I had carried out my duties, She favored me with a private audience. It was then that She presented me with this string of Buddhist prayer beads, telling me that when I laid down my executioner’s sword, I ought to become a Buddha. She then had me seek a reward from the Emperor Himself. His Imperial Majesty stood up and said, “We have nothing at hand to give you, and if you are not bothered by a bulky object, you may take this chair with you.”
A smirk appeared on the County Magistrate’s gloomy face. “I am a man of little learning and few talents. Yet however ignorant and ill-informed I may be, I have read a classic or two, ancient and modern, domestic and foreign, and in none have I ever read that an emperor would willingly surrender the chair in which he is sitting to anyone—especially not to an executioner. I submit, Grandma Zhao, that this tale is a bit far-fetched, even for you, and that you display unwarranted audacity. Why not go further and maintain that His Imperial Majesty rewarded you with three hundred years of property belonging to the Great Qing Empire, including its rivers and mountains? You wielded a sword for the Board of Punishments for many years, from which we must conclude that you are familiar with most, if not all, national laws. And so, I ask you, how should your fabrication of