Imperial Lady (Central Asia Series Book 1)

by Andre Norton

  “But Khujanga continues to cherish his silks and his luxuries, and to regard Ch’in as the mother of wise life. That is why he will send a son to court as hostage for his continued friendship with Ch’in.”

  “And in return?”

  “Ah, lady, if you overheard the court when I spoke to the Son of Heaven about the alliance that Khujanga would have, then you know what he hopes for—silks and gold, and a princess of Ch’in as his bride to seal the alliance.”

  As the man who advised the shan-yu to seek alliance, Li Ling was much in favor these days, a fact that he accepted with faint irony. Nevertheless, as shortly thereafter as friends might consider at all polite, Li Ling left her. Silver Snow sat, the tip of a brush tapping against her lip. In the days before Mao Yen-shou’s caricature had disgraced her, Silver Snow had seen the pretty, pallid princesses. Which of them would be selected to make the trip west to marry the elderly shan-yu? How could such a girl survive, a girl who wept over a pet bird’s death as if it were a worse tragedy than defeat in battle, a girl who required a bevy of maids merely to dress her in the morning?

  Such a girl might well go mad even before she set off with the Hsiung-nu. Once again, Silver Snow tapped her lower lip with the brush. My father and Li Ling have told me, if not a great deal about the West, more than such a maid is likely to know. Perhaps . . . perhaps I might be able to speak with her, console her.

  Envy flashed through Silver Snow so hotly that her hand, holding the brush, trembled. At least that girl will be free! She shut her eyes, the better to savor her sudden vision of a land she had never seen: the grasslands—tough green stalks waving in the summer the way that wind streaks patterns on a pond; horses pounding over the land, the grass brushing their flanks; the cold of winter with wind howling, building its fury across thousands of li; or the heat baking the grit and pebbles of the innermost desert.

  Soon whispers pierced even Silver Snow’s solitude. Precious Pearl, she heard, had received a higher order of rank from the Son of Heaven; soon she might even become Illustrious Consort, or one of several. That was the only news of the court itself; the rest was concerned with the Hsiung-nu.

  The ladies—yes, and some of the men and eunuchs too—of the court took positive pleasure in terrifying one another with stories of the Hsiung-nu. Those stories grew more and more common immediately after Mao Yen-shou announced that none of the princesses could be spared as a barbarian’s bride. Instead, the Son of Heaven would “adopt” one of the other ladies from the five hundred who had entered the Palace over a year ago. Royal she would be, but “daughter,” not consort; and she would not have long to enjoy the luxury of a princess of the Han.

  Naturally, Silver Snow had not actually heard the corrupt, sleek eunuch make his announcement. She could imagine the bribes flowing into his well-kept hands as lady after lady begged not to be the one selected. Which lady would be chosen?

  Mao Yen-shou must be enjoying himself, she thought, as the rumors grew more and more lurid. The Inner Courts boiled as might an anthill into which a warrior maliciously thrust a spear. The Hsiung-nu ate only raw meat; the Hsiung-nu ate only roots and meat pressed between their bodies and the saddles of their horses; the Hsiung-nu never dismounted from their horses; they scarcely looked human.

  As gossip shrilled upward toward terror, Silver Snow dared the risk of venturing from exile if only to calm the most terrified (and poverty-stricken) of the lesser concubines, from whom the selection most probably would be made.

  “If the Hsiung-nu eat but raw meat, why does the most worthy minister Li Ling speak of great brass cauldrons? If they never leave their horses, how is it that the Hsiung-nu at court walk among us like men?”

  The whispers and fears spread like blight across the gardens in the Inner Courts, and high summer rose and waned without the sighs of beauty that those gardens had exacted in other years.

  Did they look like beasts?

  Willow, of course, had contrived to see one or two. Sullen or proud she called them, anxious not to be disgraced in this unfamiliar city and even more unfamiliar splendor; but they were indeed men, not beasts. Though the Emperor’s Hall of Brightness was, to her, a site of remembered humiliation, Silver Snow thought that soon she must contrive to enter it, to hide once again behind a screen and see these strangers for herself.

  CHAPTER 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 splendid 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:

  The yellow sagebrush of the border,

  The bare branches and dry leaves,

  Desert battlefields, white bones

  Scarred with swords and arrows,

  Wind, frost, piercing cold,

  Cold springs and summers . . .

  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 w
ay 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 her, 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 thief’s 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 fine 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 ac
complished 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?