Imperial Lady

3

As the daughter of a degraded noble, Silver Snow had never dwelt long on what her wedding might be like, knowing that any marriage her father would be able to arrange would not be a mating between equal ranks. Consequently, she could not complain of a limited dawn farewell upon leaving her father’s home; nor that she wore, instead of the crimson and face-enshrouding headdress of the bride, serviceable sheepskins and ancient furs over her heaviest robes; nor that she was handed into a sturdy, enclosed, two-wheeled cart rather than into a chair hung with bells and bright trappings. True enough, her dowry—the tribute silk and gold stripped from her father’s already impoverished holdings— was loaded into carts and onto packbeasts to make the monthlong journey west and south to Ch’ang-an, the capital.

Also packed were whatever robes and ornaments she and Willow had contrived from her own and the remnants of her mother’s and the First Wife’s belongings. Hidden among the rolls of silk was that great treasure that Chao Kuang had entrusted to her in hope of melting the Son of Heaven’s heart: the jade funeral armor far too fine for anyone but an Emperor and his consort.

Oboes, pipes, and drums were supposed to accompany marriage processions. The only music for her was the ringing of harness bells from the chariot of the official who had brought the Son of Heaven’s edict.

To be sure, light from lanterns and torches, such as might grace a bridal procession, bobbed and flickered about her, casting an austere glimmer on the axes and lances borne with such pride by the messenger’s carriage. The steam of their breaths rose above the lantern-bearers and the soldiers, as the official, muffled to the eyebrows in fox furs (Willow’s mouth twisted at the sight of those), took the place of honor in his splendid equipage.

Cloaked somewhat by the interplay of light and shadow, her father looked as wasted and wan as after his escape from the Hsiung-nu. From behind the cart’s curtains, Silver Snow peered at him, desperately eager in these last few moments to record each line of his weathered face deep in her memory. She knew that, be her fortune fair or ill, she was looking upon him for the last time. That he had done her the favor of rising and dressing to see her off was precious to her. Of recent years, he usually awoke coughing in the morning. This morning, however, he was not rasping of breath, perhaps because of the potion that she had made, by Willow’s teaching, yesterday. She dared now to twitch aside the curtain, and when he glanced at her, she bowed in proper leave-taking.

There was, of course, no groom, no real parade of family to accompany her, unless Silver Snow could count Willow, who sat beside her in the ox-cart, her green eyes downcast, and her nurse. Then there were the household guards whose patched uniforms and aged horses made such a poor showing alongside the uniformed half troop riding glossy mounts, with their necks proudly arching, breaths steaming in the winter dawn.

Still, custom had to be followed as far as possible, which, in this case, was not all that far. Save for Willow and the nurse, Silver Snow was the only woman in the party; and certainly the only lady of rank. She had no bevy of ladies, no elder go-between, to escort her to the capital and instruct her in the ways of the court; only a week out of Ch’ang-an, the Lady Lilac intended for the post of mentor had fallen ill on the road and had had to be left at an estate along the way. The official had almost deigned to apologize to her father for this lack of proper company, which a noble who was not in disgrace would be certain to regard as an affront. Her father, of course, did not dare to take offense. Silver Snow, while regretting the slight to her father and her house, was relieved. There would be enough strangeness in simply traveling without the need to adapt quickly to the ways of a great lady of the court.

Because Silver Snow rode in a cart, not a chair, she could not be locked from sight. Nevertheless, her father solemnly presented a key to her escort as a token of their obligation to guard her, then bowed for the last time. The official gestured imperiously to his groom, and Silver Snow, peering from behind the curtains, saw her own driver prod his oxen.

She drew a deep, shaky breath. To leave her home, her land, all she had ever known, for what might mean forgiveness for the House of Chao, or just as likely leave her sequestered within the palace women’s quarters forever, a prisoner of exalted rank! It was frightening! The torchlight swam in a rainbow haze as she blinked quickly Willow grasped her mistress’ hand reassuringly The oxen lumbered forward, and with many a shake and many a giddy sidewise swing, the cart rolled down the familiar hill that she would never again see on the first leg of the journey to Ch’ang-an. Dawn wind cast a delicate spume of snow against her face as it brought her the last words that her father spoke before he, leaning heavily upon his stick, entered his now-daughterless house.

After several nights on the road, the train of official and soldiers transporting Silver Snow toward Ch’ang-an stopped for the night in a town where they could seek more comfortable shelter in the home of a magistrate, who appeared, bowing double at the gates, in a frenzy of apology lest the thrice-honored official from Ch’ang-an find his hovel (for thus he spoke) and his First Wife’s untutored efforts beneath contempt.

Silver Snow’s nurse, who had been ill throughout the journey, promptly fainted; and her mistress sighed with relief as the old woman was carried within. Here, she might be tended and might rest until someone might be found to return her to her home. Her young mistress glanced at Willow, who nodded and pulled her hood farther down upon her head. How strange Willow looked! At the last halt, she had vigorously rubbed her hair with lampblack lest its ugly, ominous red hue draw comment among the ladies of the magistrate’s inner courts.

“That is not necessary,” Silver Snow had protested, but Willow had been silent, stubborn. Even the old nurse, from her swathings of sheepskins, had spoken (between moans and sneezes) a brief word of approbation and relief.

They were waiting for her now, judging from the hisses and giggles that she heard from outside the circle of torch- and lamplight. This far from the capital, they too must be eager for news, more eager still to see a lady who might, one day, be the most honored among all women. Straightening her furs as best she could, Silver Snow stepped down from the cart, resting her hand for the briefest of moments on the arm of a guard. Then she walked quickly toward what looked like an inviting circle of light and warmth—into a new world.

She had expected courtyards much like her own, old, shabby, and relatively bare, either of furnishings or of people. Here, however: light, colors, and smells erupted so she blinked, bewildered, glancing from elaborate hangings to wall paintings to what seemed like a veritable army of high-born ladies. Most seemed to be regarding Silver Snow with pursed lips and incredulous eyes beneath high-arched brows. Each, from First Wife to youngest concubine, wore new, intricately wrought silk garments, their full sleeves nearly brushing the matted floor. All of the robes were embroidered with flowers; and each lady wore the scent of the blossom stitched upon her robes. Now they bowed, each as befitted her own rank, until the play of color and scent made them resemble a garden in a spring breeze.

Overwhelmed by colors and scents, as well as the unfamiliar warmth of these courts, Silver Snow stepped backward—just in time to miss the ceremonious greeting of the First Wife. She recovered almost the instant thereafter, and bowed the more deeply to make amends; but, as she realized with a sinking heart, it was too late. Gossip had already begun: rustles of silk as hidden hand plucked gleaming sleeve; a gleam of moonbright cheek laid against powdered cheek; a hiss of sympathy for the slight to the First Wife; and, above all, the whispers, like the sighing of a bleak wind.

“Did you see, she strode into the house as if she had done no more than walk from one court to the next? She neither wept nor swooned. How robust! How very coarse.”

“At least, the crone, her nurse, had to be carried in. I know that I would be prostrate, were I forced to make such a journey ...”

“Such a strange appearance: no proper go-between, and only that ugly maid ...”

“Keep her shadow away from me!” squealed one of the concubines. “I am with child; I would not have our master’s son born lame.”

Foolishness, Silver Snow wanted to cry as Willow shrank back into her mistress’ shadow.

“Look, how the ugly wench glares at you. Do you think she heard?” A faint giggling followed that question, and the concubine and her friend flounced away.

“/ do not think that the Emperor will even look at this one,” announced an elder wife to the First Wife. “Country-bred, rough, and appallingly healthy. Who knows if she is truly a lady of the Han? You know, they say that her father married among the Hsiung-nu ...”

“That would explain her repulsive hardiness, if she were half ...”

“Hush!” commanded the First Wife, who approached Silver Snow with a glittering smile in which the girl could discern nothing of welcome.

Nor did the bath, more elaborate than any she had ever known, warm or refresh her. She took no pleasure in the robes in which they wrapped her, with many comments on her weathered hands, callused from bowstring and blade, and her browned face. Willow’s mirror might show her to be lovely when she sat alone at home; here, however, she saw herself as she was: lacking the insipid prettiness that made each lady resemble the others as one plum resembles its companions on the branch. Where they minced and tripped, she walked; where they fluttered lashes and sleeves, she moved quickly, decisively; her brows, though finely, naturally arched, were •too thick, and her mouth far too generous. Even here, she thought, chin raised and with a flash of anger, she was not ill-favored: just very different, very much a lady of the northern frontier.

As she sat among the others of the inner courtyards, spooning up a savory soup rich in spices such as her own poor kitchen could only sigh for, a sudden spasm of fear clutched her and made the soup taste flat. This was, as its master said, but a provincial house. If this passed as backward and countrified, what must the Imperial Courts be like?

Would any there accept her more willingly?

It did not matter. She had made the only choice open to her—to obey with a willing heart.

The next morning, when the whispers started again, Silver Snow learned that, despite the local magistrate’s pleas, the Son of Heaven’s messenger chose not to remain another day, but to press on instead. She felt only relief.

But she had not reckoned with the magistrate’s First Wife. “Sister,” said the lady, according Silver Snow the tribute of equality since—-who could know?—one day, she might be the beloved of an Emperor, “a thousand apologies, but I must impose on you to discuss your attendant. ”

The First Wife’s glossy hair was scented with lilac; and lilacs glistened on her fine robes. Though she spoke of humility and apology, Silver Snow could see neither in her dress, her gait, or her speech. The girl waited courteously, feigning attention and eagerness to listen.

“The girl is ugly,” said the First Wife. “Forgive this wretched one’s ill-bred speech, but your maid is so ill-favored and halt. She will do you no credit in the capital.”

Silver Snow cast down her eyes and murmured that Willow had long served her.

“In the North, perhaps such as she is the best that there is to choose.” The First Wife shrugged a plump shoulder as if anything might be expected to happen in the barbarous North. “You are young and far from your home, younger sister. Let me advise you as should your go-between . . . but you have none, now have you?”

“She was taken ill,” Silver Snow found herself explaining, feeling oddly defensive, oddly apologetic on behalf of a woman whom she did not know and who allowed infirmity to interfere with duty.

“Very well, then. I know that she would advise you to accept my offer of three lovely maids to accompany you to Ch’ang-an. That one can wait here until the old nurse is fit to travel, then return North, or . . .” Another comfortable, plump shrug indicated that whether or not Willow found herself well suited was of no lasting importance or concern.

“I thank you, Elder Sister”—Silver Snow bowed—“and I beg you to forgive me; but, having suffered the rigors of travel myself, I cannot bring myself to force one of your ladies—all gently reared—to endure them too. Willow is willing and strong; she suits me well.”

“Indeed, she does,” said the First Wife, ice in her voice and in her spine as she bowed with the merest possible inclination as Silver Snow prepared to depart.

The wind whipped at the curtains of her ox-cart, but Silver Snow could have embraced it like a sister. It was not just relief at being out of that too crowded, too hot, and too treacherous women’s quarter; it was enjoyment. Silver Snow would never have imagined that she would adapt with such zest to travel—or that it would be so hard to conceal her interest and delight at each new day from her protectors, who seemed ever concerned that the hardships of the journey not overpower a lady’s fragile body and spirit.

Day by day, as the land grew less and less familiar, she took increasing satisfaction in peering out from the slit that she had fashioned in the heavy curtains of her ox-cart, listening to the guttural, barely understandable words of the peasants, the arrogant demands and comments of the official and, sometimes, the tax-gatherers, also on imperial orders, who seemed to be a plague upon the land. Her sole regret was that she could not ride out herself among them as she had been accustomed (however improperly) to do at home.

It was not so much that she could not tolerate the crowded towns, or the company of her hostesses, with their constant concerns and stream of chatter about daughters, servants, concubines, and the kitchens. Not all were as frigid and hostile as the lady at her first stopover. Some were actually kind. Others pitied her; and once again, there came the buzzings, the whispers, the sleeve-pluckings. “Poor child, how weathered she is.”

“She is but one among five hundred. What hope has she, with no wealth and that browned skin, of being noticed? Thus I told her; and she said that she journeyed to court at her father’s will.”

“They are strict in the North about obedience, if about nothing else. How mannish is her stride!”

“Let her creep back to her home. Surely, she would be forgotten. Indeed, I think it likelier that no one will ever notice her in Ch’ang-an. When / saw the city ...”

“Once, you saw it, when you were a girl of ten ...” “When / saw Ch’ang-an, let me tell you, younger sister . . Silver Snow became adroit at feigning deafness. Never before had she imagined that words might have edges as keen as fangs or blades. The words of the ladies whom she met, kindly or ill-willing, cut deeply.

At the times when the limitations of women’s quarters and women’s chatter pressed her too closely or wounded her, she reminded herself of her duty to her house and its honor, and held hard to her pride that she, a woman, might serve as the means of its rebirth and the mender of its fortunes.

She realized that in Ch’ang-an she would enter just such an enclosure as those first ladies kept. Perhaps, if fate was kind, it would be a more luxurious seclusion, but seclusion nonetheless. Still, it had been her choice. Although no one dared to refuse a summons by the Son of Heaven, she was fairly certain that the kindly lady at the last house was right: should the daughter of a disgraced noble have failed to turn up, one among five hundred women, no one would have noticed; or, had someone noticed, he would not have cared. What was more, the other four hundred and ninety-nine would rejoice.

Then, her ox-cart waited, and they would be on the road again. Once more, Silver Snow would avidly peer out through the rent in the curtain, Willow beside her. Each day was an adventure. Best of all, however, were the nights when the caravan stopped along the road; nights of firelight and starlight and, overhead, the vast, wind-filled bowl of the sky.

She discovered that she was coming to welcome such nights when the packtrain, cumbersome despite the official’s swift carriage and swifter impatience at delay, bypassed a town, preferring several hours more of travel and a stop on the road for the night.

If only, then, she might have ridden! Used though she was to a more active existence, she dared not suggest it to the master of their party. Already, he might have heard slighting reports of her; she dared not risk his disfavor. Even the horse that she had always considered hers was stabled at . . . the place that she must forever afterward regard as her father’s house, not her home: not anymore. The hurt of that realization faded day by day, overlaid by each glimpse of a new town, or peasants, steaming with sweat as they worked on the land or the roads, though it was deep winter.

Reconciled to idleness as befitted a great lady, Silver Snow watched while camp was made, smiling at the confusion among the official’s servants, approving her own guard’s quick, soldierly ways as the men camped in a protective circle about her cart. Then, once the fire was kindled, her cart became a pavilion that was more comfortable than she would have imagined. She and Willow had their own fire, and, with no walls but the night, their own court, ringed at a discreet distance by her father’s old soldiers.

When the wind was right, Silver Snow could hear the clicks of playing pieces, the grunts of disappointment, an occasional laugh of victory from the men’s camp; she could even catch stray words of the grave, self-important speech of the official to underlings and a few scholars who had attached themselves to the procession, eager for a relatively rapid and somewhat safe trip to the capital for the all-important examinations.

She listened eagerly, warmed by the men’s rough laughter, the gibes at this or that official. The names of the latter she set herself to remember with the same zeal that a young soldier polishes sword and armor. At one point, the leader of her escort train laughed and spoke slightingly of Mao Yen-shou, on whom her own fortune could rest. Not for worlds would Silver Snow have dared to violate custom by sending to ask of the man what he knew; but she was sorely tempted.

Huddled in a quilted robe, Silver Snow rubbed her hands before her night fire, waiting for Willow to return from whatever scouting mission the lame maid might have set for herself. A small bronze pot of soup steamed near the flames, and though it was no job of hers to tend it, nevertheless, she did. If only she had been a scholar, even one of the lowest rank, or perhaps simply a candidate journeying to the capital to take the arduous civil examinations, she might have sat at that larger fire to warm mind as well as body.

Her lively intelligence hungered for just such meetings, but, trapped as she was in a female body, she was reduced to tending the soup, forced to wait upon others for news to brighten a day. Her father had always addressed her as he might have spoken to a son and heir. These men, if they were of rank to notice such a fellow traveler—had she emerged directly into their company—would cast such attention on her as they might upon a stray flower, fallen from its stand in a marketplace: fair for the moment, but of no true value to serious-minded men engaged upon their business.

A chaste lady destined for the Emperor’s Inner Courts, Silver Snow could appear to most of them as an item of merchandise—perhaps a roll of fine silk or a carved jade vase—to be kept safely until delivery at the Palace. When the official must speak with her, he used the elaborate, complimentary speech of the court, full of flowery compliments that meant nothing, either to him or to herself, carefully delivered from beyond the protection of the cart’s curtains.

What more could she expect? Even the Lady Pan, who had lived so many years at the court and gained what renown a woman might for her upright conduct and her work on her brother’s histories, claimed in her manual for court ladies a position that Silver Snow had already forfeited at home. Women, decreed Lady Pan, were formed strictly for modesty and submission, discretion and quietness. Silver Snow’s longings to ride in the open air, her desire to hear, at least, the official’s discourse, were highly improper, very possibly impious. She had already noted that some of the ladies who had received her, albeit reluctantly, as a guest regarded her as unfeminine because she could walk into their courts, rather than be carried within, prostrate and ill.

She knew what her father would have said—had indeed said—because of the one time, years ago, she had broached such a subject to him. “What the Lady Pan writes is no doubt good and proper. But the lady herself is also a woman, and therefore subject to error.” The gleam of humor in her father’s eyes had removed any hint of rebuke from his statement.

A snatch of words floated from the official’s camp. Confucius again: “Whatever acts unnaturally will come to an unnatural finish.” Silver Snow shuddered and burrowed more deeply into her sheltering travel robe. For the past several nights, she knew, the guard on the packtrain had been doubled, and her own escort ringed about her more closely. That could mean a threat of bandits, peasants forced off their land for failure to pay taxes, savage in their rage; or (and this was what she hated to think upon) it might mean fear of some beast, wild or not.

Silver Snow stirred the soup again and shivered. Willow . . . her maid had carefully renewed the dye on her hair each night, always keeping to the shadows, still the ugly, barbarous rumors that Willow was more animal than human had sprung up in several houses where they had guested.

That could mean danger. A generation ago, fears of witchcraft had cost some of the Emperor’s ministers their posts and others their heads—or other parts of their bodies. There would be no mercy for a lady and her father against whom toleration and shelter of a witch might be proved: even an accusation of witchcraft could be deadly, especially for a family already judged to be traitors.

Outsiders saw only a red-haired woman (or one with hair stained an unnatural black) with a limp and deemed Willow to be an unnatural creature. They did not know how loving and loyal she was, even when it came to creeping out by night in a camp full of rough, strange men. I shall have to warn her, thought Silver Snow, and regretted the thought. The maid would weep—her face reddening in a curious way that it had, until her green eyes looked even less seemly than usual—and swear that doubtlessly she endangered her beloved mistress by her mere presence.

Footsteps creaked against snow, stopping in the darkness outside the light cast by her fire.

“Most honored lady?”

Silver Snow stopped herself before she leapt up, gasping from surprise.

“Younger brother,” she greeted Ao Li, who was at least thirty years her senior. Fie shifted from foot to foot, his hands behind his back, staring at the ground, as if unsure of how to begin. After a long pause, which she waited for him to break, he thrust out what he had concealed behind his back as he approached her.

“This one dared to think that the Esteemed Lady might wish to have this keepsake,” he said.

It was her bow, carefully maintained, though she had not been the one to do so, and a quiver of lovingly fletched arrows.

Her eyes filled, and she opened quivering lips to thank the old soldier. Instead of vanishing, as she half expected that he might do from sheer embarrassment, Ao Li again shuffled his feet before he stood at attention, almost as if he were about to report to her father.

“The most honorable lady well knows how to use that,” he nodded at the bow. Indeed she did: Ao Li had helped to teach her.

She smiled. When there came no answering smile, her own faded, to be replaced by alarm. “Does the honorable soldier think that she will have to?” she asked. “The guards . . She gestured at the closely picketed horses, the tight circle of protection around her wagon and her fire.

Ao Li glanced around. Despite the cold, his broad forehead was sweaty beneath the scarf that he had pulled down over it. He leaned forward, in discretion, not in insolence. “Wolves, lady,” he whispered. “But not ...”

A crackle, such as a misstep upon a twig might make, forced them to jump.

“The noble lady honors this worthless soldier,” Ao Li said in a voice which sounded false. “He will depart to better guard her. ”

That much she could put full trust in, she thought. But what had frightened the old man so? She laid her cheek against the bow, remembering her last hunt up by the Great Wall before the messenger had summoned her to Ch’ang-an and such strange future as might now lie before her. The grip was smooth, familiar, the string, when she tested it, taut and new.

Where was Willow? If wolves were abroad, Willow was lame; she could neither run nor fight. Silver Snow almost rose to call Ao Li back and order him to seek out Willow. Yet, the maid might not want attention called to her in such a way. She forced herself to sit still, but her fists clenched within her long sleeves until the nails bit into her palms.

“The Red Brows . . . marauded hereabouts only the night before . . . three peasants ...”

Words floated again from the official’s firesite. Not an unnatural animal then. She need have no fears for Willow, at least not yet. But what were “Red Brows”? Perhaps bandits. In which case, Silver Snow was doubly thankful for the gift of the bow . . . assuming it was not a terrible violation of all proprieties if she used it.

Better, she thought daringly, a violation of the proprieties than of her own body. She was a general’s daughter, an Emperor’s concubine-to-be: no prize for bandits.

The wind shifted, overpowering the rest of the words the official was addressing to his guard, and making her shiver.

Abruptly the stars overhead no longer held the promise of freedom. Instead, the very open spaces about her seemed to threaten, rather than promise release. As a gust of wind tossed sparks from her fire high in the air, like an army beacon, Silver Snow rose and entered her wagon, where she hoped to find among her baggage that jade-handled knife she could use either to let out a bandit’s life, or her own.

A scratching at the hanging of her cart made Silver Snow gasp and whirl around. The wickedly sharp little knife glinted in the firelight as she drew it, ready to her hand as the hangings parted.

Willow stood before her, her green eyes wary as a vixen’s as she noted her mistress’ knife.

“Lady?” she began, cautiously using one of the most formal of Silver Snow’s titles.

Silver Snow flushed and laid the knife aside. She was pleased to note that her hand did not shake, either from fear or from the cold. “Come in, Willow, before the winter rules in here as it does outside.”

“I rescued the soup, mistress,” Willow said, lifting the pot with one rag-wrapped hand as she drew shut the cart’s hangings behind her, leaving out the wind and the world beyond. As Silver Snow waited, barely schooling herself to patience, Willow made elaborate play of serving the soup, of adjusting bowls and cushions just so: all of which enabled the two of them to sit with their heads close together, bent over the bowls as if inhaling the fragrant steam.

“I am glad you returned safely,” Silver Snow whispered.

Willow laughed. “It is easy to go about the camp if you are considered ugly, mistress. The men touch amulets and let me pass with a jest or two: one listens and learns much, if one ignores their harsh words.” The glint in Willow’s eye reminded Silver Snow that that had been a teaching that Willow had found hard to master.

“And what does one learn in such a way?” asked Silver Snow.

Willow pulled out a small disk, marked with glyphs and ideograms that, for all of her learning, Silver Snow could not read, besides strange pictures, symbols in what, surely, was the tongue of the beasts.

“The troopers asked me why a woman as ill-favored as I should keep such a fine thing,” Willow commented, looking as if she wished to claw something. “I told them: to look behind me, and they laughed. But that is the truth: I use this to look behind me, and before and to the sides, lest not all men be what they appear.”

“And you have found such?” asked Silver Snow.

Willow nodded. “Yes, Elder Sister. Some are wolves.”

Wolves! That was precisely what Ao Li had tried to warn her of before their conversation was interrupted.

“What do you know,” she asked Willow, “about ‘Red Brows’?”

Willow’s bowl did not shake in her hand, but she looked up sharply. “I could glean very little news from near the camp, Elder Sister,” she said. “The brothers- and sisters-in-fur fear the soldiers’ bows and lances. And they fear more the wolves. There are men in this camp who take silver, but do not requite their hire as should honest men. But . .

“But?” Silver Snow snapped up the word. “If they were that much afraid, they would not dare to come speak with you.”

“That much is true, lady,” Willow conceded. “But they are more afraid of the Red Brows, who hunt, not from hunger but for the joy of slaughter, who burn villages when they have no need of warmth, and who slaughter babes, human and animal, as if they have no thought of tomorrow. The escort soldiers, too, are afraid, I think. When I passed them, the smell of fear was on the wind ...”

She grimaced, then sneezed. “What is worse, though many fear spies, some, I fear, are spies.”

“Would you know them once again?”

Willow nodded.

“Very well then. Watch well.”

Silver Snow produced her bow, flourishing it in delight when Willow’s eyes opened in surprise. “We are not wholly unarmed,” she said.

“Lady, if they know that you can shoot ...”

“Would they prefer me to hang myself with my sash in fear of ravishment? I shall make them pay dearly for any sport they plan and slay myself before they can enjoy it. Willow, do not forget that in addition to the merchants’ ware, we carry silk and gold ”—and jade, too —“to the Son of Heaven. Our train would be a rich prize. Could you discover a trail of these bandits?” she asked.

Willow laid her hand across her felt boots, one heavily padded to compensate for the fact that one leg was shorter than the other. “Ah, lady, had I a night to run in, I might know them again. But that leaves you unguarded, unattended ...” “What are you talking about?” asked Silver Snow. “I thought . . .” She gestured at Willow’s lame leg, where the folds of robes hid it. Certainly Willow could not be admitting that the ugly rumors were true. Surely she spoke only of spying, as a servant aged or ill-favored might well do.

But Willow shook her head vigorously. “When your honored father purchased me from the slave-merchant, I was little more than a kitling, lost from the herbalist who had taken me in. What chance has such to survive without a master? Less than none. So I remained. Elder Sister, let me ...”

I thought that you loved me. Now you say that if you were whole, then you would run away and leave me! The wail rose in Silver Snow’s mind, and her eyes filled. Willow grasped her hand in her own callused palm, almost like a paw, and kissed it.

“I would never leave you. It is only bandits that prey upon their own and foul their nests. Beasts feel gratitude to those who feed them, warm them . . . love them,” said Willow, bowing almost double. “This one is as a beast beneath your feet. Forgive me, Elder Sister, for such plain speech.”

It was too great a risk . . . suppose the bandits would see Willow as a victim for quick sport and slow pain. Yet Willow’s willingness to risk herself might save them all.

“Just until moonset.” Though Silver Snow had the right to command, her voice rose as if she asked Willow’s consent. “For was it not truly said by General Sun Tzu that ‘an army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears’?”

“Did this sage serve with your father, may the Ancestors smile upon him?” Willow asked. Dear Willow! She would never willingly share Silver Snow’s lessons, try as she had to teach her.

For the maid, what counted was not the long traditions of humankind but the sights and smells of the country through which they passed, and the speech of plant and beast; for Willow, like the women of the Hsiung-nu, was wise in the ways of the land. Wise, perhaps, and something more, something that for all the years they had been together, Silver Snow had willfully refused to see.

Silver Snow, stubborn in her innocence, had been as steadfast as Willow. What if the rumors were true, and Willow truly were a fox-spirit? Answer your question yourself, girl, Silver Snow thought with an asperity new to her. What if she were a fox? She has given you her heart. That being the case, does aught else matter?

For the first time, Silver Snow let herself think the unthinkable. Confucius denounced belief in fox-spirits as the rankest superstition. Well enough, then: simply say that Willow was wise; say, then, that she had powers not granted to the ordinary woman. And that she repaid love with love.

“That is man’s craft; I know naught of such spies, but much of such scouting and sniffing as the beasts do. For I am my mistress’ . . . servant,” Willow said, her eyes gleaming with courage and wry humor. “And I shall act as my nature— afid my mistress—command me.”

She waited only for Silver Snow’s hesitant nod before she started to leave the cart.

“Where do you go?”

“Elder Sister, to spy upon wolves.”

Willow smiled enigmatically, and slipped between the enshrouding folds of the curtains of the ox-cart.

Outside the cart, Silver Snow heard yapping. She forced herself to wonder at the rashness of whatever beast ventured thus close to a camp of armed men. Pain filled those yaps, and they rose shrilly, yet she refused to go and look upon whatever cried out thus.

Finally, when the whining and barking died away, Silver Snow peered outside. On the trampled snow lay a heavy sheepskin robe . . . Willow’s, thought Silver Snow. Despite her limp, the girl was hardy. She had probably discarded the robe for greater speed and agility.

Suddenly a large fox, its glossy red fur almost black in the cart’s shadows, crawled from beneath their weight, then forced itself to its feet. One forepaw was badly crippled, Silver Snow noted. Had the guards set traps, or was that more than coincidence? Silver Snow held out her hand to the beast, but it darted past her, out into the night.

Bow strung, dagger ready, Silver Snow leaned against a support in her wagon, dozing, not daring wholly to sleep lest an attack come that she would not be prepared for. Where was Willow? she wondered as the night drew on.

Were this a normal night, the maid would long since have doused the fire, and performed other small tasks about her mistress’ camp. Were such tasks omitted, it might be noticed. Picking up Willow’s heavy sheepskin coat, Silver Snow slipped into it. Sewn for a woman taller and heavier than her mistress, Willow’s coat fitted loosely over Silver Snow’s own robes. She climbed outside, savoring the sweetness of the air, mingled with the ash scent of a dying fire.

For one moment she paused to admire the great arch of the heavens. Then she heard the tread of boots, and she stiffened, one hand near her dagger, the other ready to toss earth on the fire, so she and her enemy would be equally blinded. But it was a guard . . . Ao Li, to be exact. Silver Snow summoned him over and, in an imitation of Willow’s voice so good that she surprised herself, she gave him whatever instructions might properly come from her “mistress.”

When Ao Li hurried back to the guards, Silver Snow remained outside, straining her ears to listen. Finally, she heard an agonized yap, as if some dog— or a fox! she thought, stabbed by fear as though wounded with her own blade—had been kicked or slashed. Or perhaps, it was simply a wounded girl, in such extremity of anguish that her cries no longer sounded human.

A derisive shout, the impact of some missile against a chariot, and angry protests from others in the train; and whatever beast had cried out yelped again and ran . . . ran toward her.

If they have harmed Willow, I shall see their heads lopped from their bodies! Silver Snow vowed with unusual vehemence. She also swore that if Willow did not return, she would seek her.

As she leaned against the cart, she strove to appear as a serving woman through with one task yet reluctant to enter her mistress’ presence where an endless round of other duties might await her. Through the clean night air, sound carried clearly. Silver Snow heard the panting of a wounded, frightened beast fleeing, desperately hoping to evade pursuit long enough to go to earth . . . fox’s earth, thought Silver Snow.

Now came the rhythm of the creature’s paws. One, two, three . . . drag; one, two, three . . . drag; a long pause, followed by a faint whine, almost instantly suppressed as if the beast was aware of its peril. Silver Snow forced herself to admit it: the beast had appeared when Willow vanished; the beast had a lame leg, just as Willow did; the beast had Willow’s color and courage and affection. It had to be Willow!

Thus, the thing that she had fought all of these years not to believe was indeed truth: Willow was a fox. Still, Willow was also her maid, her friend; and she was in deadly danger. Silver Snow’s hand went to her mouth as she willed with all her strength that Willow was not so badly wounded that her beast’s senses had overpowered the human part, perhaps past her best efforts to change back.

“Willow?” she called, hardly above a whisper. Only another whimper answered her.

Silver Snow ran forward as a dark, vulpine shadow staggered forward beside the last dying coals of the cookfire. The beast flinched away as she laid her hands on its right flank. A slash ran up one paw . . . the lame one. Silver Snow hoped that that had bled clean. The wound looked painful, in this so-limited light, but not serious: more like the results of unthinking human malice than an attempt to kill. She picked up the trembling fox, which raised its good forepaw to pat her cheek. Then she bore the animal into the cart, setting it down by a pan of water, before she hurriedly draped a heavy robe around Willow’s fox-shape.

She busied herself heating some of their scant, precious supply of rice wine, another of the luxuries left from the former riches of her house. Ordinarily, such highly prized wine was reserved for the Palace, but her father had had a small store of it, and had given it to her, to warm her on the long, cold road. Wine was said to bring fever to wounds, but Willow was so cold. If she drank now, she might be the better for it.

Within the swathing of robes, the fox thrashed, first feebly, then with growing strength. Silver Snow resolutely turned away. She would not watch. The passage from fox to girl sounded even more labored, more painful, punctuated by soft barks and muffled human sobs and pleas. If only there were some help or comfort Silver Snow could offer!

Outside, the sky was paling toward dawn. Soon, the wagoners and guards would be up and moving about their tasks. Willow had work to perform to aid that departure, but, clearly, she would be unable today even to show herself abroad. For the first time, Silver Snow was glad of the curtains and the customs that kept all aloof. She pushed aside one of the shielding curtains to set, slowly and less skillfully than Willow might have, about those chores. Her impersonation apparently was successful: if anyone noted her awkwardness, he would ascribe it to those aching bones that made her limp even more pronounced.

As she reentered the cart, Silver Snow smelled the heady fumes of hot wine. Willow lay curled in uneasy sleep within the warm tumble of robe.

As Silver Snow knelt to smooth it, Willow cried out and flinched. The robe opened to expose a deeply bruised side and a badly cut foot. However, her breathing was so regular that Silver Snow thought that she had suffered no broken ribs. When Willow woke, they could see to strapping her chest. For the present, there was that foot with its angry-looking wound. As Silver Snow bathed it in the dregs of the wine, Willow cried out and jolted back to consciousness.

“Let me finish with this, younger sister,” murmured Silver Snow.

“I did not risk my life only that you might nurse me,” snapped the maid. “We must flee this place. The red brows of whom men speak have agents in this camp who suspect that you carry great treasure. It is only by the grace of . . .” she broke off.

Fox-spirits’ sky must have many gods, thought her mistress. Had these shape-changers, indeed, a god to whom they prayed? “Well and enough that they did not attack tonight. Your guards were watchful and loyal to you. Others ... I marked one or two. But we can expect bandits along the road: perhaps attack will come today as we go; perhaps not.

“But, Elder Sister, be warned. If we camp outside a town tonight, we must look well to ourselves. This band is strong, and very angry. Many of them are farmers thrust from their lands when they could not pay taxes to bandits of officials, who grasp all in the Emperor’s name.”

“Then it is wrongs which have reduced them to this,” observed Silver Snow.

Willow shook her head. Her eyes were bright and angry. “One of them gave me this, I think, for no other reason than as I walked by, I disturbed his thoughts. Wronged, perhaps they have been, but they themselves have committed greater wrongs since then. Mistress, I tell you, we must look to ourselves lest they put hands on us! Watch for bay horses. I heard bay horses mentioned among them!”