Imperial Lady

10

For many, many days Li Ling did not visit her. It must be affairs of state, Silver Snow thought at first. Even in her isolation, Silver Snow had heard how the shan-yu s youngest son would remain at court, hostage for the Hsiung-nu’s good behavior in case their honor failed them. Once again, as had been done when, years ago, Khujanga came to power, Ch’in ruler and Hsiung-nu drank wine and horse’s blood out of a cup carved out of the skull of Modun, who had been enemy to shan-yu and Son of Heaven both.

She had heard whispers of the splended gifts that the Hsiung-nu had brought to Ch’ang-an—a hundred highland-bred horses, a string of camels, and fine sable and fox skins. (Willow winced even at the mention of them.) She had also heard about the gifts prepared against the return of the Hsiung-nu to the grasslands: lacquer and silk and fine bronze mirrors. Only the gift of a princess to be the shan-yu s bride was yet lacking.

Silver Snow had just begun to reproach herself for some slight to the wise old eunuch when he appeared in the gateway of the Cold Palace. The instant he was safely within and might not be observed, his face altered from the masklike formality that a minister in his position found safe and politic to wear at court. Now he gazed at her with a mixture of regret and humor.

The past year had taught Silver Snow to wait with, at least, the appearance of unconcern. Thus, she met his eyes with a serene brow and raised eyebrows.

“Events have finally conspired against Mao Yen-shou!” Li Ling exploded, laughing. “No sooner had he left for Lo-Yang than the Son of Heaven reached a decision about the Hsiung-nu’s desire for a princess as a bride for the shan-yu. Once again, the Son of Heaven has shown himself more interested in speed and ease of choice than in lovely ladies. He has declared that he will use Mao Yen-shou’s pictures to determine which lady among the five hundred may best be spared.”

“And you think I may be selected?”

Silver Snow’s composure suddenly abandoned her.

It was logical that she be selected. She had seen the lying portrait that the Administrator had painted of her; it was, by far, the ugliest. The Emperor had acceded to her exile to this Cold Palace; he would be glad to be rid of her. And she, O heavens, she would be delighted to escape the prison that the Inner Courts had become.

She could mark one major obstacle, however. Although Mao Yen-shou might be glad to be rid of her, he would hardly want her to come to the Son of Heaven’s attention at all. True enough, he possessed the jade armor, but Silver Snow possessed knowledge of what he was: liar and thief, willing to threaten a young woman with charges of grave-robbing in order to secure her house’s last treasure. No, Mao Yen-shou had chosen a disastrous time to travel to Lo-Yang.

Li Ling knew that for Silver Snow, the Cold Palace was a worse fate than exile to the West, and he wished her well. Could he really contrive to have her selected? Her face flushed and her eyes filled with tears, not of fear, save of the overwhelming and unfamiliar, but of excitement. To be free once again! To ride free! To see finally the grasslands and the lands over which her father had ridden!

Lines from an old poem echoed in her mind:

She shivered, overcome with a feeling that she was appalled to admit was longing.

“I cannot believe,” she began almost whimsically, “that Mao Yen-shou would do me such a good turn.”

Then she saw the sorrow on the old man’s face. “In the normal way of things, most revered teacher,” she assured him, “and in the run of time, it would have been you who left me. In the grasslands, there are horses, and where there are horses, there may perhaps be messengers to carry letters, if one who is called a queen sends them. And besides, I have not yet been selected.”

The eunuch shook his head, smiling. “Yet, like you, I think that you will be. Especially if it can be contrived that the worthy Mao Yen-shou can be summoned elsewhere.”

He glanced aside at Willow. “And you, child?”

Willow bowed, expressing in the dip of her head her complete willingness to follow Silver Snow wherever she walked or rode. Among the Hsiung-nu, Silver Snow recalled, there were some women who possessed powers more than those granted to normal beings. Perhaps Willow, crippled leg or not, might not be as out of place among them as she was in the Inner Courts of Ch’ang-an where the only things for which a woman might gain notice were physical beauty and grace.

Once again, Li Ling sat in the Cold Palace, drinking rice wine in a rare celebration. Now, he had roused from his usual, disciplined quiet as he described how Mao Yen-shou’s chief assistant had brought out the portraits, bowed, and had to be hauled upright, so much weight had he gained in the past year.

“And then the Son of Heaven looked through the pictures, rapidly, as if he well knew what he wished to see. When he came to your picture, ‘That one!’ he waved at it. And may she bring the Hsiung-nu luck, with her black mole.’

“Do you know,” Li Ling added, “you might just do that too?”

“She will,” whispered Willow.

Silver Snow darted a quick glance at her. For a moment, Willow had gone utterly pale, and her eyes stared not at her friend and mistress but through them. Then she shivered and seemed to wake from whatever trance she had entered.

“What did you say, Willow?” Li Ling pressed her gently.

“I, noble lord?” asked Willow. “How should I speak before I am invited to? I said nothing.”

“The Hsiung-nu believe that you may be auspicious,” Li Ling explained.

Their—what must Silver Snow call them?—priests?— though, surely, the Hsiung-nu could have nothing that civilized—had sacrificed a sheep, scrutinized its scapular bones, and decreed that the Lady Silver Snow, beloved “daughter” of the Emperor, was an auspicious choice of wife for Khujanga, shan-yu of the hordes.

In her new status as cherished child of the Son of Heaven, Silver Snow was not suffered to remain in the Cold Palace. Servants, as obsequious now in their eagerness to please as they had previously been arrogant, moved her few belongings and brought new, rich clothing and lavish screens into the vast, well-lit chamber to which she had been assigned. It might, she thought, be the last time that she ever lived beneath a fixed roof, for they said that the Hsiung-nu hated such confinement, living in felt tents that could be taken down and put up as they moved from winter quarters to summer pastures.

To her amusement, visitors came to bow to her like a flock of butterflies about a particularly splendid flower. She was in favor; and they constructed their lives upon serving whoever was in favor. Besides, she suspected, they wanted to study her and perhaps to gloat if she showed signs of terror or flinching.

“It is like the weak,” Willow remarked sardonically, after the flock had fluttered itself out of the courtyard, “ever to savor the misfortunes of their betters.”

“Hush, Willow.” Silver Snow had forced herself not even to smile at that sally, though she had to admit that it was true.

Even Lady Lilac—whom Silver Snow knew had disliked her and whom she hoped had forgotten her (and far, far better thus!)—came, weeping over her former charge, trying to gain her confidence.

“Lady,” the girl broke in on one of her more overwrought laments, “you know how vulgarly hardy I am, how ill-suited to the Inner Courts. My father lived quite well among the Hsiung-nu as a prisoner, and so, I think, can I. I shall be the precious consort of the shan-yu himself; I cannot think that they will mistreat me.”

That tiny barb, she thought later, might be unworthy of hef, but it had been quite irresistible.

As the day when Silver Snow must leave the Inner Courts, step into the specially built traveling chariot, and ride out from one of the western gates of Ch’ang-an, drew closer, she found herself regarding the journey as an adventure. Not so, however, the ladies who had been ordered to attend her. (To Lilac’s immense relief, she was not among them.) Already, they wailed as if they went to their own funerals.

Would they survive the journey? Although the Hsiung-yu prince who would conduct his father’s bride to the grasslands had vowed that they would be turned back at the border, would he keep his word? Time and again they wept over those questions, despite Silver Snow’s assurances that she would ride on alone with the Hsiung-nu and whatever ladies they had brought to meet her. She would, after all, have Willow at her back. (As always, the ladies pursed their painted lips when she mentioned her club-footed maid.) She could not think of such a journey, such a total alteration of the fabric of her life, without her faithful Willow.

Finally the day came when Silver Snow sat dressed in robes so rich and so heavy that she hardly dared to move, awaiting her summons to the throne room. In that same room where she had once spied upon her own disgrace, Silver Snow must, in her role as dutiful child to the Son of Heaven, bid farewell to her “father” whom she had journeyed from the North to see, but had never met.

She glanced into the mirror that Willow held for her.

“Ah, that eunuch, that Mao Yen-shou, will burst from sheer mortification, Elder Sister!” The maid smiled, and her teeth were very white and sharp. “How is it that he could not prevent this meeting?”

“Li Ling may have been stripped of his armies,” Silver Snow replied, “but he is still a far better general than the Master of the Inner Courts.”

“Ah, lady, the instant that the Son of Heaven sees you, he will know that you are not the homely creature of that fat thiefs portrait.”

“Perhaps the artist thinks that the Emperor will not look beyond the painting to the woman. After all, the headdress that I shall be wearing is very heavy.”

“Then it is for you to make him look!” stated Willow.

“For what purpose, child? I leave Ch’ang-an as I left my father’s house: never to return.”

“For revenge!” Willow almost spat.

But Silver Snow shook her head. “I have no need of revenge,” she said.

“You shall have it!” Willow cried. “The Son of Heaven will fear that you are too plain for even the Hsiung-nu to accept as a bride. Let him just look upon you, and behold what he will see!”

Once again, Willow offered the mirror to Silver Snow. In it, she saw several kinds of truth. One such truth was her own beauty. Another was her own nature; she was the daughter of a soldier, raised hardily in the North. Such a one could not easily forgo vengeance, no matter what sort of wise sayings she might mouth.

“Yet,” she admitted, “I would like to clear my father’s name, even though, by my adoption and marriage”—she shivered, despite the weight of silk that pressed down upon her— “he gains great face. It is not the same, however.”

Willow shrugged, clearly and silently expressing her impatience with such line distinctions. Then, just as she bent with infinite delicacy to straighten Silver Snow’s headdress, the summons came. Surrounded by ladies and a guard of honor, Silver Snow was borne away to the throne room.

Slowly, impressively, Silver Snow entered. Suddenly her knees felt like ice thrown into boiling water; she thought that her bones might spin, melt, and cast her down. Her headdress was so heavy that, perforce, she kept her head down for fear of breaking her neck if not of being thought overly bold. And, thanks to the fringe of her headdress, strands of pearls swinging and chiming sweetly against her brow, Silver Snow kept her eyelids lowered too, like a proper modest maid and not a woman come to do battle for her house and for her future.

She accomplished her entry into the hall in which she had been so cruelly humiliated and sank into the ceremonial prostration as she had been drilled. A sigh went up at what the court seemed to regard as her grace. But her breath came rapidly, and she knew that she was trembling. Even the kingfisher feathers that adorned her glossy hair quivered.

She had wanted a good look at the Emperor, but now that she was but a glance away, she kept her eyes fixed on the floor, overcome by simultaneous feelings of awe and rage. This man, this thin, pale man with his scholar’s hands, was the Son of Heaven, the heir to Ch’in Shih Huang-di who had set a border to the Middle Kingdom and appointed laws for all things. He was practically a god on earth. Yet this man was the man who had humiliated her, banished her, outraged her father’s friend, and all but killed her father for his too-austere loyalty. She was afraid to look upon him; she was too angry to look upon him. Let the Ancestors look upon her with forgiveness: he was too weak for the role he played.

She turned her attention to the Hsiung-nu, the beardless barbarians among whom she must live or die. A child dressed so richly that his gear reminded her of a horse’s caparison stood surrounded by guards. The boy’s flattish face and bold stance made her sure that the child was the hostage that the Emperor had demanded that the Hsiung-nu produce in return for a treaty. Would he deal any better with the luxurious imprisonment of the Palace than had she?

He looked up at her, laughing as a child does when it sees a bright toy. Before Silver Snow thought, she greeted him in the tongue that her father and his men had taught her, and he all but jumped in amazement.

Nearby him, his face somewhat averted as if he participated in this ceremony only with the greatest reluctance, was a man of the Hsiung-nu, whose sable-trimmed robes marked him out as one of importance, perhaps even a prince. Hearing his own uncouth speech in the mouth of a Ch’in lady, he glanced up, jolted out of his rigid stance of attention. Then his eyes glazed the way they do when a man looks at a horse, but decides that he does not wish to buy it. Quickly he looked away and, once again, became like a statue, and not a breathing man.

So these were Hsiung-nu, she thought. They were hardly the brutes about which the ladies of the Inner Courts had terrified themselves into frenzies. Take away their ornaments and their furs, dress them in a soldier’s worn garb, and they would look remarkably like her father’s guardsmen.

But the Son of Heaven was speaking; it was not for the likes of her to fall into daydreams just at the moment for which she had waited. The very thought brought a blush to her face.

“What exquisite modesty,” mused the Emperor. “It is a woman’s greatest ornament. Look up, daughter.”

To disobey the express word of the Son of Heaven was treason or worse. Having no choice, Silver Snow looked up and, in the next instant, shrank back as the Emperor gasped.

“Again, it is my lady, my lost favorite!”

To Silver Snow’s amazement and the muttered horror of the court, the Son of Heaven did not use the “we” of propriety, and he spoke to her as if the two of them were the only people in the splendid, crowded room.

“Child, you have my dear lady’s look, her walk, her very aspect!” the Emperor told Silver Snow. In that instant, the distinctions between Emperor and woman fell; they were left facing one another, a grieving man and the woman whom he had grievously injured.

“Why did no one tell me?” demanded the Son of Heaven.

He had spoken to no one in particular; no one, therefore, would dare to take upon himself the responsibility of framing an answer: no one, save for Silver Snow.

“Most dreaded Son of Heaven,” said Silver Snow, “this one begs your forgiveness for the insolence, but she suggests rrjpst humbly that you ask Mao Yen-shou.”

As she spoke, her voice rose from the die-away murmur in which she had been drilled to a strong, echoing voice. From the corner of her eye, she saw the Hsiung-nu turn, drawn by the power in her voice. One of them, the most richly dressed except for the hostage, set his lips and glowered in what Silver Snow realized was approval.

“Rest assured: that we shall do,” said the Emperor. Once again, his words and voice were those of the Son of Heaven, not the scholar so ill-suited for the Dragon Throne. “But before we bring Mao Yen-shou before us, lady, I ask it again. I ask it. How was I not told that you are the image of my dear, lost lady?”

“Most Sacred Majesty,” began Silver Snow, but the Emperor held up a hand.

“No,” he said, his voice so soft and warm that Silver Snow knew that he spoke through her to a familiar, most beloved ghost. “Would she call me that? Speak, my dear child, and do not fear.”

Silver Snow sank once again on her knees, grateful for the cool solidity of the floor. She had come to the irrevocable choice now: lie to the Emperor, which was almost blasphemy; or denounce the very powerful master of the Inner Courts, which might be deadly. As much as any battlefield might be, this was death country, and she had no choice but to attack.

The knowledge restored her courage and her composure. “Mao Yen-shou did not wish for you to see me,” she spoke calmly, as if she discussed history with Li Ling. “When I came to court, Majesty . . .’’he held up a hand, but he was smiling.

“When I arrived, the Administrator . . . suggested that your favor might lie in his hands and brush, which could be inspired by a suitable gift. But I had no gifts . . . save one; and that gift was reserved for you.”

The Son of Heaven smiled at her, a smile that seemed to inquire where that gift was and to reassure her that she herself was the finest gift that he could ask.

“Most Sacred, I mean, my lord, my father’s lands are poor; we have lived desolate for years under the affliction of your disfavor. Even the dowry that I brought to Ch’ang-an was more than my father might easily spare, but he provided that with a willing, obedient heart. And he provided more besides.

“My lord, our house had one great, remaining treasure— two suits of jade armor worthy, despite our own unworthiness to possess such treasures, for an Emperor and his First Lady to be buried in. These he entrusted to me, and he commanded me that, should I win your favor, the ...” She was scarlet, as if she had dipped her hand in scalding water. “. . . first night . . .” Silver Snow shook her head, and finished quickly. “He told me to give them to you as a token of his obedience.”

A commotion, quickly stifled at the door, told her that Mao Yen-shou had sought to leave the hall and been restrained.

“The girl lies!” he cried, and his finely trained, high voice rang out to the rafters.

“Do I?” demanded Silver Snow, who turned so that she could see both him and the Emperor whose face had darkened with anger. Disheveled by his struggle for escape, he seemed fatter and less formidable than the man who had terrorized a tired girl from the North who had a father and a maidservant to protect. “Then call this a lie too: you took the jade armor and, when I protested, you showed me old teeth that you had dropped into the chest that held them. And you said that if I protested, you would accuse me of grave-robbing, and bring my father’s house to less than naught!”

She turned back to the Emperor. “I beg you,” she cried, “seek for that armor and then judge between us as we deserve. This one is wretched, weak, and would rather die than live longer in the icy shadow of your displeasure.”

The Emperor waved, and footsteps backed down the hall, headed, no doubt, for wherever Mao Yen-shou sequestered his greatest treasures. Only then did Silver Snow have time to * invent fears for herself. What if Mao Yen-shou had sold or broken up the armor? He could not have sold it; for who would buy such a treasure? And its worth lay not so much in the jade or the gold but in its workmanship and antiquity; thus, he would not have broken it up, either. The guards would have to find it.

Even though her reason told her clearly that that was the truth, her teeth chattered, and she wanted very much to weep with fear. Yet, this was death country, and she had laid her plans, launched her attack, and, like a general—like her father himself—she must abide by the wisdom of her battle plan, whether it brought her to victory or to disaster.

She heard footsteps echoing toward the hall. The guards must be returning! She refused to look at them, concentrating instead on the sounds about her. How slow, how labored were their steps! Surely, they walked as if they bore something heavy . . . something like two suits of jade armor?

How she hoped so!

The guards strode up the hall, dropped what they bore on the floor, and bowed abjectly. Now Silver Snow forced herself to look at what they bore: she knew those chests! From them Mao Yen-shou had lifted the jade armors and claimed them for his own.

The Son of Heaven gestured impatiently. Well, his agitated hand motion revealed, open, open them.

The peaceful, mellow green of fine jade and the splendor of gold winked out of the chest at them.

“I trusted you!” the Son of Heaven shouted at Mao Yen-shou, who prostrated himself, his face on the floor. “I trusted you, and you painted me this lie of a likeness, this slander of a portrait of a lady worthy to be Illustrious Companion. Had you not treasure enough already? Was I not a generous master?”

Mao Yen-shou’s face went so red that Silver Snow feared, for a single, unselfish moment, that he might collapse right then and there. Almost, she could pity him. His mouth opened and closed; the folds of flesh at his throat, enclosed by the high collar of his rich silk robe, shook, but no words came out.

“Take him away.” The Emperor waved his hand, his voice bored. “I want his head to adorn the western gate by sundown.”

This time, Mao Yen-shou did find voice enough only for a sharp, wordless cry of protest before the guardsmen dragged him past his former companions (who drew their robes aside from the contamination that he now represented with a rapid hiss of satin) and out toward his death.

For a moment everyone in the hall stood transfixed, staring at the door. Then the eyes flickered back to Silver Snow.

“This one begs the Son of Heaven to accept her father’s worthless gift for the sake of the love and loyalty that he has borne the Son of Heaven all of his life.” There! The words, the ones that she had journeyed all the way to Ch’ang-an to say, were finally out.

The Son of Heaven rose from the Dragon Throne to the accompaniment of gasps of amazement. Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the jade armor and ran one finely kept hand over the smooth, cool jade.

“We accept the gift,” he announced. “And we thank Chao Kuang, whom we restore to all of his old titles and honors. Once again, let him be marquis and general. The scribes shall record it, and an edict shall be sent to Chao Kuang.”

Silver Snow laid her brow against the cool floor so quickly that the kingfisher feathers fluttered in her hair and the pearls rang against one another. Tears heated her eyes, and what felt like a knife transfixed her at the center of her chest; but she did not care.

If I die in the next moment , she told herself, I have lived long enough. I have my victory , and, my father, you have your honor back. To her astonishment, a gentle hand touched her hair. “Rise, lady,” whispered the Emperor. “I have my burial armor, it seems. But, who is the lady to wear its companion through forever? You, perhaps?”

“Dread Emperor,” whispered Silver Snow, “I am pledged to the shan-yu. What am I beside the sanctity of your word?” The Emperor gestured to the Hsiung-nu party. Not at all to Silver Snow’s surprise, the young, richly dressed barbarian strode up, bowing tardily and with an awkwardness that was astounding, considering that the young man must have spent his entire life in the saddle. He was muscular, stocky, though not as portly as a Ch’in prince would be, and about as tall as the Son of Heaven himself.

“Prince Vughturoi,” called the Son of Heaven, and his voice was very crisp. “Let us discuss the bargain that we have made. This is not the princess whom we promised to your father. Another lady will be provided as a bride. Will you and your companions accept that lady?”

The young Hsiung-nu ambassador jerked his head at Emperor Yuan Ti, then turned back to his fellow ambassadors and the shamans who stood in attendance on them.

The eldest of them stepped forward.

“Emperor,” he said bluntly, “we will not.”