Imperial Lady

14

Silver Snow chose to use her chariot for entrance to the main camp of the Hsiung-nu. Though that decision might make them regard her as weak, she wanted the advantage that a few minutes of study, behind the chariot’s protective curtains, would give her.

“It is custom,” said Willow, “for a bride to arrive in a carriage or litter. Besides,” she added practically, “should snow fall, you will not ruin your brocades.”

“Foolish one,” replied Silver Snow, as she pushed away the mirror that Willow held out for her, “what will the Hsiung-nu care about fine silks?”

“They were eager enough to accept those that the Son of Heaven sent to this shan-yu, and they will be glad, I make no doubt, of those that you bring in your dowry. These are simple, robust people. Let them see you shine out like the sun and the moon, and they will respect you the more.”

Willow held out Silver Snow’s finest cloak, a magnificent thing of soft brown sable, under which she wore the red robe of a bride. When the call came, she left her tent, gathering her robes about her with more care than she had shown at any other time during the months of their journey to the court of the shan-yu. Behind her, Sable and Bronze Mirror gasped in wonder and admiration.

“She is worthy,” said one of them, with a fondness in her voice that made Silver Snow arch delicate eyebrows in astonishment as she eavesdropped, “to be called Heavenly Majesty. Indeed, she looks not like a woman at all, but like a creature from the sky.”

The other chuckled, a ribald laugh that was returned by Sable, Silver Snow decided.

“Surely, no,” the deeper voice belonged to Bronze Mirror. “Would you lay rude hands upon a piece of jade? The shan-yu s sons are full-grown, and his daughters have sons of their own. He will cherish this little lady as an ornament for his tent, not his bed-place, being far beyond such sport.”

“A pity. When her beauty fades, a son would give her more arrows for her bow than she now has. And she is a lady who well understands the use of . . . well, weapons.”

Why, thought Silver Snow, they wish me well! Would that all in the camp to which I am about to fare do so as well!

“Aye, indeed. But the Heavenly Majesty wanes. A day may come ...”

“Hush!”

Silver Snow was not at all surprised to see Vughturoi ride up and give the order to start on the very last leg of their journey to the court of his father. She was, however, surprised to see that he had donned fresh leathers and furs and that, round his neck, hung the key with which Li Ling had ceremoniously locked Silver Snow into her chariot upon her departure from Ch’ang-an and then had presented to Vughturoi in token of his authority to guard her.

He grinned as he rode by her chariot, practically under the noses of the camels that were swaying and groaning their way to their ungainly feet. “Courage, lady!” he called in an undertone as he made the key swing on its heavy chain. “How much worse can it be to enter my father’s tents than to slay the white tiger?” That was a question to which Silver Snow would have given all that she possessed or might hope to possess for an auspicious answer.

The pale winter sun was high overhead when the first riders from the shan-yu 's court met Silver Snow’s caravan, a cavalcade of shaggy horses and men who were wrapped in felts and furs and who bore the bows and long spears of the horde. They rode straight at the caravan as if, at any moment, they might level their spears or nock arrow to bow, and charge.

Silver Snow peered out from the curtains of her chariot. Her guards were worse, she thought, than no protection at all, for they signaled all too clearly, “Here is she whom you seek.” “Do you want your bow, Elder Sister?” asked Willow. Silver Snow touched Willow’s hand gently. Though a bow had served her well in many a battle, it was her wits that must serve her now. “Even if I needed it, it would serve no use.” She watched Lord Vughturoi ride out toward the newcomers, admiring his skill with horses, a mastery so deep that it was unconscious. Those from the camp were a very different type of man than Vughturoi and his companions, whom, Silver Snow guessed, must have been among the younger and more adaptable of the Hsiung-nu for the shan-yu to risk sending them to Ch’ang-an at all. These riders were not all older men, by no means, but they seemed somehow rougher, wilder, lacking the refinements of Ch’in culture that Silver Snow had occasionally noted in her escort. Though, like Vughturoi, they were sparsely bearded, many of these men bore facial scars from the custom that many of the Hsiung-nu still observed of slashing their faces when mourning a friend, a kinsman, or a leader.

Had the men been any people other than Hsiung-nu, Silver Snow knew that they would have made much of dismounting, of sitting together and sharing food before discussing their business. Such a meeting might well have lasted the entire day. However, she did not expect that the Hsiung-nu would so much as stir from horseback, and she was right. A trick of the wind brought their voices toward her, and she strained to listen.

“A good journey, and a better one back,” Vughturoi com-men ted to an older man who clapped him about the shoulders. Again the wind blew, and Silver Snow caught only half of his next speech . . not as bad as I expected, and, in fact, well enough. I see that Sandilik the kam-quam, is among you. We have had ...”

Again, a gust of the treacherous, frustrating wind blew away the words Silver Snow listened for as if her life might depend upon them. Kam-quam, she knew, meant a male shaman; and, yes, such a one rode among them, with his spirit drum and his robes trimmed with bones and the skins of snakes, here in this land where no such creatures ever hissed and coiled. Vughturoi’s voice had not sounded that strained and anxious even on the night they stalked the white tiger.

She waited for him to bring up what, she knew, must be the questions that he had suppressed.

“How is . . . those gashes look fresh, Kursik.”

“His Heavenly Majesty survived your absence,” replied the man called Kursik. “He is well, and sent us to seek you.” “The Sun be praised!” Vughturoi’s voice roughed. “But still, you bear scars that look fresh.”

“My brother, Prince. Erlik take him, but, for all that, he was my brother.”

“He followed my esteemed brother Tadiqan, did he not?” “Aye, and that was what undid him. Tadiqan has new arrows, ones that whistle. They say,” the newcomer dropped his voice, and Silver Snow strained to hear him, “that they are bespelled, never to miss the mark. Now he has made a new law for those that follow him. When he fires a whistling arrow, all must fire after him. Well, there was a small thing, a claim of a stolen bride, I think, and Tadiqan fired one of his arrows. At my brother. Am I to require bloodprice from a prince or all of the men who dog his heels?”

Vughtoroi reached out and clapped Kursik on the shoulder. “You may require it of me when I have unpacked. Ch’in, praise Tangr and the Sun, is still rich and eager to share its wealth with us, lest we overrun them. But I must deliver my father’s new bride.”

“That too,” said Kursik. “Tadiqan and his mother have said that no spoiled child of the Inner Courts shall displace Strong Tongue for long, and that when His Heavenly Majesty ...”

“Enough!” Vughturoi’s hand tightened on his spear, then released, as if he longed to hurl it at an enemy but did not dare. “My father lives, and I have returned. It is by no means certain that Tadiqan will be the first of Khujanga’s sons to find his husk. His mother is well named. But should I live to become shan-yu, let her beware that she does not poison herself and her son with that tongue!”

Perhaps Sable, the more friendly and more malleable of the two Hsiung-nu ladies, might tell her more. After all, it was she who had told her of the shan-yu 's sons, how, of ten strong men, all but three had died: two elder and the youngest, the child who was left hostage in the Middle Kingdom.

Silver Snow let the curtains drop. “Fetch Sable,” she whispered to Willow. So Strong Tongue was not a phrase of ill-wishing, inauspicious words that could turn Prince Vughturoi’s face grim in an instant, but an actual person: the shan-yu s eldest wife and mother of a prince who clearly expected to inherit. Those two obviously held some power, or else Vughturoi would not have been dispatched to Ch’ang-an when his father was old enough for people to expect him to die. His sullenness had been fear, for himself and an old man whom he clearly revered, and perhaps even for a young woman who journeyed into more danger than she could possibly expect.

Sable rode up. At Silver Snow’s invitation, she leapt with what seemed astonishing ease from horseback into the chariot just as Prince Vughturoi gave the command to ride.

The narrrow eyes of the Hsiung-nu noblewoman widened and shone as Silver Snow greeted her with all the elegance that she might have used for a Brilliant Companion, then moved on to the pleasantries suitable between equals before they attended to any serious matter that might be discussed. Clearly she was impatient to get to the core of whatever Silver Snow had to say; just as clearly, she forced herself to allow her new queen to take the lead.

Finally—less time than would have been proper in Ch’ang-an but more time than either woman wanted to squander on preliminaries—Silver Snow leaned forward and saw Sable’s eyes brighten. Finally, an end to waiting!

“Tell me of our people,” invited Silver Snow.

Sable was glad to expand upon the strength of the royal clan, the majesty of the shan-yu who ruled it, the wealth of its tents and herds, and the prowess of its warriors, among them Basich, her brother, and his hero, the Prince Vughturoi. Basich, Silver Snow learned, had children but no wives; Vughturoi had had a household, but “ill fortune struck, and his elder wife died in childbed,” Sable spoke dispassionately, in the even tones of one for whom such misfortunes were part of everyday life. “Then his younger wife fell from her horse when it stumbled. He was glad, this one thinks, to obey His Heavenly Majesty’s command to travel past the Purple Walls to fetch ...” she trailed off, in a kind of embarrassment that surprised both herself and Silver Snow, who had not been aware that Hsiung-nu could blush.

“Who is Strong Tongue?” Silver Snow asked. For the first time in all her travels, she saw one of the Hsiung-nu flinch.

Her eyes grew round, almost distending from their shallow sockets. “She is like your handmaid, only more. Strong Tongue is a woman of power who knows all about the birth or death of a man or woman and whose voice is strong, like unto the voice of gods. When she fares from her yurt, all cover their faces and abase themselves in fear of her power.”

Or, thought Silver Snow, in fear of her son's whistling arrows.

“She is no friend to me, then,” she concluded, and saw Sable relax a little. Now, at least, she would be able to say, should Strong Tongue question her, that she had told Silver Snow, the interloper from Ch’in, nothing except that Strong Tongue had power.

She spoke gently, easily to Sable. Let her see that I have no fear ; she thought. Then, just as swirls of dust up ahead heralded the approach of more riders from the shan-yu's camp, she released the Hsiung-nu woman to remount her horse, lest she be seen sitting at ease with Strong Tongue’s enemy.

Silver Snow shivered and tucked both hands into her voluminous sleeves. “More than ever, Willow,” she said, “I am glad that you are with me. The day on which my father gave you to me is thrice auspicious.”

Willow reached out, greatly daring, to pat her mistress’ arm. “It will be all right. My head upon it; you shall come to no harm, little mistress.”

At that moment, the Hsiung-nu’s camp guards reached the caravan, surrounded it, and, with blood-chilling shrieks of welcome, escorted it into the camp of the shan-yu, the ancient husband whom Silver now had journeyed so far to meet.

Riders flowed about the wagons and chariot of Silver Snow’s caravan, bringing it down a narrow aisle which was guarded by bowmen and over which loomed figures hacked into rocks and set up along the line of march. From where had they borne such stones, and why? Silver Snow wondered. She glanced at them, then glanced aside at the nakedness of the male and female figures, their private parts embarrassingly plain to be seen.

She had expected a camp. What, finally, her train paused in front of was just as much a court as any assortment of pavilions and gardens in Ch’ang-an, though it was as different from the capital as she herself might be from the robust, brawling women who tended the huge cauldrons that steamed outside many of the felt yurts.

Vughturoi gestured, and Silver Snow’s driver stopped the chariot in front of the largest and most splendid of the tents. Actually, if a palace could be wrought of silk, leather, and felt, with occasional struts of rare, precious wood, the shan-yu 's tent was such a place. Despite the cold, its flaps gaped open, and fires burned within, their smoke rising through holes in the roof. So heavy and so firmly pitched was the tent that its walls scarcely rippled at gusts of wind that might have bowled over lesser structures.

Carpets of wool and silk, brought either from Ch’in or taken from the cities even farther west, in the land of the Hu, or Persia, lay scattered in and out of the tent, piled one upon another in shining layers. Farther inside, Silver Snow could make out plump brocaded cushions, the sleek gleam of lacquered chests, and ordered heaps of furs and silks. She had expected stark necessity. What she saw now had a splendor that might be barbaric but was also curiously attractive.

To Silver Snow’s astonishment, Vughturoi dismounted and, with a flourish, applied the key that he wore to Silver Snow’s chariot, though, since it was of Hsiung-nu design, possessed nothing that even resembled a lock. Silver Snow stepped down on ground that felt pebbled, unfamiliar beneath her feet. How odd it seemed now that she would be traveling no farther, at least until spring, she thought; and knew that for nomad thinking.

An elderly man shuffled forward, awkward with age as well as with the gait of a man who had, lifelong, ridden more often than he had walked. Beneath swathing furs, he wore a robe of Ch’in, embroidered with dragons and trimmed with vermilion. It hung on him in such a way as to suggest that once he had been a far heavier, more muscular man. Though he too wore the soft-soled boots of a rider, his were so lavishly fur-trimmed and embroidered that it was clear that he had not set foot to stirrup in many a day. The thin, scraggly beard common to males of his race was white from extreme age. Though his eyes were sunk deep in the wrinkles formed by gazing for too many years at the trackless horizon of the steppes, they were wise, cunning, and even a little humorous.

With great effort, he bent to touch Vughturoi’s head, from which the young man had swept his fur cap. “As you can see, my son, the Sun has not yet claimed me,” he said. “Rise.”

“At your command, Most Heavenly Majesty,” Vughturoi answered, Then, his voice choking, he added, “It is most good to see you . . . Father. ”

“There, now, and so it is for an old man to see you too.” The shan-yu patted his son’s arm, then turned to Silver Snow, who went immediately to her knees, Willow pulling her robes into order and away from possible contamination from straw, dust, or dung.

“My bride,” said the shan-yu, laboriously edging forward to take Silver Snow’s chin in his hand and raise it with the eagerness of a child examining a new kite in the spring. “She is more fair than aught else I have seen from the Middle Kingdom,” he declared. “Child, I bid you welcome. You shall be chief among my consorts, and I name you the queen who brings peace to the Hsiung-nu. For it is peace that you have brought. Henceforward, I decree that my cousin Yuan Ti has no need to defend his Wall. From the Great River to Dun-huang, I myself shall order my sons to maintain it.”

Silver Snow blinked. As quickly as she could, she must write that news to Li Ling and to her father, together with what she thought best to do. Yet, to do that, she must observe, must spend time within these tents. That, of course, would be easy enough; henceforward, they were to be her home.

“Tents have been prepared for you and . . . you have brought ladies? Those sent to you were adequate?” asked Khujanga the shan-yu as if he truly cared what became of her. “They shall unpack . . . ah, I see a lute! Do you play?”

She nodded and cast down her eyes, grateful for one thing: that her Hsiung-nu ladies had assured her that this man, old enough to be her father’s father, was past bed-sport.

“I am glad. I favor the music of the Middle Kingdom and much else that that ancient, rich land has given us. Your name and family, child?” Abruptly he shot that question at her, and Silver Snow realized that, kindly though he was, he was still every shrunken inch the ruler.

“Before the Son of Heaven raised me up, I was Silver Snow of the house of Chao; he who begot me was Chao Kuang, marquis and general—”

“And long-time dweller in my tents.” The shan-yu nodded.

“But come in, come in and eat with us, drink with us, meet those over whom you will rule.”

Silver Snow followed the shan-yu into his palacelike tent and allowed herself to be seated next to a brazier, elaborately wrought of bronze trimmed with jade, malachite, and lapis lazuli. Scented smoke coiled up from it, masking the everpresent odors of dung, sweat, beasts, and cooking meat. She was handed a delicate cup that contained a coarse dark brew at which she sipped and concealed her reaction to its taste. That it was warm and made her tingle sufficed.

From outside came the shriek of a whistle, followed by the buzz of a flight of arrows, then a chunk as they went home in ... in what? Silver Snow remembered the words of Kursik, who had met her train on the way to the shan-yu 's camp. That must have been one of Prince Tadiqan’s whistling arrows. The Ancestors send that it had found its mark only in a post, not in a human heart.

When a squat, bandy-legged man, his face gashed, his sheepskins and furs grimy, stalked into the tent, brandishing a bow, Silver Snow knew that she had guessed aright. This must be the eldest prince, son of Strong Tongue, master of many men and horses. And if he succeeded his father as shan-yu, tribal custom decreed that he would become her husband in turn. Judging from the way his dark eyes raked her, he would most definitely be her husband in far more than name. She controlled herself before she could recoil, a movement that most probably would have tumbled her from her cushions onto the scattered carpets.

Unfortunately, as she composed herself, with one foot she knocked over a plate, and the meat that it contained rolled into the fire. Only a quick grab by one of the other women saved her knife from going after it.

That, Silver Snow thought, was nothing too bad compared with what might have occurred.

Instantly she was proved wrong. The tent grew silent, the Hsiung-nu very still . . . too still. In that quiet, the pad-pad of heavy, booted feet was all too loud, all too reminiscent of the beat of a huge, hostile heart. Many of the Hsiung-nu sighed and turned their heads away, they, who prided themselves on their very fearlessness.

Silver Snow, seeing no cause for silence or fear, looked up, expecting speedily to see a slave or servant who might clean up what she had dropped.

Instead, she felt a sudden gust of wind as the tent flap was hurled open. The fire sparked and swirled upward toward the vent in the ceiling. A huge bulk loomed on the threshold of the tent. Even as Silver Snow watched, it resolved into the figure of an enormous woman, one hand thrust out in accusation.

“The hearthfire is polluted!” The woman’s voice rose up in reprimand and lamentation. It was deeper than any woman’s voice that Silver Snow had ever heard, and it had about it an odd, growling rasp. “Douse it, that I may purify the hearth to warm this ignorant, frail creature whom those weaklings beyond the Wall have sent here to supplant me.”

An immense and immensely powerful woman pushed her way through the clustering Hsiung-nu. At her approach, they laid aside mutton and mare’s milk to watch her. Many bowed. Resembling Prince Tadiqan, by whom she took up a defensive stance, she was broad and squat. Like the shaman who Silver Snow had seen on the road, she wore a robe trimmed with feathers, strips of fur, and snakeskins. Also like him, she bore a spirit drum, its drumhead taut with a skin too delicate to belong to horse or sheep or camel or aught else . . . until Silver Snow looked down at her own hand and wrist, where they emerged from her sleeves, and surmised the fate of one, at least, among the Ch’in prisoners or the children whom they had had.

This then was Strong Tongue. Her sister-wife—and, by every readable sign, her enemy.