Imperial Lady (Central Asia Series Book 1)

by Andre Norton

  “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—and 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 t
he 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!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Silver Snow had little sleep in that last hour before dawn, when the unwieldy train creaked onto the road to Ch’ang-an. Though several times before she had slept comfortably enough in the cart, wedged with quilts and cushions against its lurching, today she did not surrender to any rest. For which of the outriders were Willow’s spies? A number were mounted on bay horses. From where the cart was situated in the line of march, it was impossible for her to tell how many were, or even if Willow had indeed discovered them among the guards.

  Also, her maid was listless, almost feverish, too weak for her usual sharp-tongued chaffering with their driver, which, in the past, had brought them scraps of news. Willow dozed or tossed, though she firmly refused to let Silver Snow examine her wounds again.

  Thus the day was an ordeal, a test of Silver Snow’s composure and li, or propriety. She must sit calmly in her cart, not crane her neck like an unpledged peasant maid to stare through her private peephole and make sure her soldiers followed closely, their bows strung taut as she had ordered the night before. Nor was she about to demand of this haughty official extra guards and reassurances that he could not, in all truth, give, even to a woman as valuable as a candidate for Imperial Concubine.

  Each jolting length the cart traveled became an ordeal, each cloud shadowed a possible massing of Red Brows. The clatter of a peasant’s mattock on frozen field sounded like the first swordstroke of battle. A creak of branch, or a bough snapping from a winter-killed tree, sounded attack signals to her overwrought mind. Yet Silver Snow dared not complain to the official, who would wonder at what she knew and how she had gained that knowledge. His own file of guards was large. She herself, despite her possible future rank, rode less straightly guarded.

  Silver Snow kept her hands passively folded in her sleeves. Underneath her outer robe lay dagger and arrows; her bow waited for her, strung, barely concealed by spare cushions. She came tensely to full alert each time they swept past peas
ants trudging on the road. Who knew whether or not those figures muffled in patches of rag upon rag might not actually be scouts, swords and bows near to hand? Once again she attempted a study of each rider within her range of sight who bestrode a bay horse. Was he the spy? Her fingers slid back and forth across the hilt of the sharp little dagger that she had tucked within her sash.

  Slowly, the day wore on, a day of drab skies, and sullen, spitting snow. Rather than shadows here and there, a general haze misted sight. As the afternoon gave way to evening, the sky began to lighten, even to assume a faint imperial vermilion tinge at the western horizon toward which they journeyed. Even the heavy cloud cover began to dissipate, allowing the limited light to send long shadows from man, from horse, from cart across the ice-bound fields.

  Willow roused and pulled herself up to find her own spy place behind the driver. She drew a gasping breath that brought Silver Snow to her side. The beggars just ahead, two or three of them, one missing a leg. Armed only with the staves they needed for balance on the treacherous icy road, they squatted by its side to allow the cortege to pass, looking miserably cold. As the official’s own elaborate carriage passed, they held out their cracked palms beseechingly. The carriage ground to a laborious halt at the imperious command of one of the official’s outriders.

  “Why do you stop?” came a cry, which carried to a distance through the icy air.

  “Is charity not a virtue, lord?” The insolence of that must have rendered the official dumb, for he made no answer. Two guards dismounted and walked toward the crouching beggars, leading their horses. Their bay horses.