She Who Became the Sun

by Shelley Parker-Chan

  “Do you actually believe the idiocy that comes out of your mouth?” Baoxiang sneered. “Perhaps I didn’t speak plainly enough. Without me Henan would have fallen already, whether or not you have Bolud’s support. Rebellions promise their followers everything we fail to give. So if your peasants are starving, your soldiers unpaid, don’t think they’d be loyal to you, or the Mongols, or the Great Yuan. They’d join without a second thought. The only reason they don’t is because I govern and tax and administer. I pay their salaries and rescue their families from disaster. I am the Yuan. I uphold it more than you can ever do with the brute force of your swords. But in your hearts, don’t you still think of me as worthless?”

  “How dare you even imply that the Great Yuan could fall!”

  “All empires fall. And if ours does, what will happen to you, Father, as a Mongol?”

  “And you? Which side will you be on? Are you a Manji or a Mongol? I spent my breath raising you as one of us, but you would turn around to join your bastard father’s people?”

  Baoxiang reeled back. “My bastard father?” he hissed. “The father of my blood? Your words betray you, Chaghan. You never raised me as one of you. You never accepted me for who I am; you never even saw everything I did for you, all because I’m not like my brother!”

  “You Manji piece of scum, with the blood of dogs! Coward and weakling. Nobody wants you. I don’t want you.” Chaghan strode across the room and backhanded Baoxiang across the face. Baoxiang fell. After a moment he slowly rose to his knees, touching the corner of his mouth. Chaghan snatched his sword from its stand and unsheathed it.

  Esen’s warrior instinct realized Chaghan’s intent. For all his frustrations with Baoxiang, he couldn’t conceive of his maddening, impossible, pigheaded brother being erased. “Father!” he shouted.

  Chaghan ignored him. Gripped by such a fury that the naked blade trembled in the lamplight, he said to Baoxiang, “I’ll cut your traitor head off. The death of a true Mongol is too good for you.”

  Baoxiang looked up from the floor. Blood ran from his mouth; his face was contorted with hate. “Then do it. Do it!”

  Chaghan snarled. The blade flashed. But it didn’t descend: Esen had flung himself across the ger and caught his father’s wrist.

  “You dare!” Chaghan said, wrenching at Esen’s grasp.

  “Father!” Esen said again, applying as much strength as he dared. He knew the moment he let go, Baoxiang was dead. He could have howled with frustration. Even in resisting death, Baoxiang was causing trouble. “I beg you, spare him.” His father’s wrist bones creaked under his grip, until with a gasp Chaghan dropped the sword.

  Snatching his hand back, Chaghan’s look of pure fury skimmed over Esen and landed with finality on Baoxiang. For a moment he seemed unable to speak. Then he said with an ominous, throttled quietness, “Curse the day I took you in. You bastard Manji from eighteen generations of cursed ancestors. Never come into my sight again!”

  It wasn’t until he was long gone that Baoxiang unclenched his fists. His deliberateness belied by a slight tremor, he took a handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed his mouth. When he finished he looked up and gave Esen a bitter smile.

  Esen found himself without anything to say. Up until this moment he had truly believed that if Baoxiang would just try, he could still be the son Chaghan wanted. But now he knew it had always been impossible.

  As if reading his mind, Baoxiang said simply, “See?”

  * * *

  The gers shone silver in the moonlight. The smoke from their apexes wended upwards like celestial rivers. Ouyang made his way through camp to where the Prince of Henan’s mounts were tied on long tethers to an overhead line stretched between two tall anchor poles. A single figure stood midway along the line with the large shadows of horses clustered near him.

  Esen didn’t look around as Ouyang came up. He was stroking the nose of his favorite horse, a tall chestnut that looked black in the moonlight. The horse pricked his ears in recognition, not quite in Ouyang’s direction. Not at Ouyang himself, he thought uneasily, but at whatever it was that trailed unseen behind him. His own mare was tethered a few horses down the line. When she noticed Ouyang she dragged her tether along the line, bunching up all the intervening tethers into a tangle the grooms would be cursing him for in the morning, and nudged him with her nose.

  Esen’s shoulders were tight with misery. It was easy to tell what kind of encounter he and Lord Wang had just had with Chaghan. As he looked at Esen’s noble profile, for a moment all Ouyang wanted to do was ease his unhappiness. Ouyang felt his own pain at seeing Esen hurting, and tried to imagine it multiplied by a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand. He couldn’t. He thought: I’m still drunk.

  He said, “Your father and Lord Wang. How was it?”

  Esen sighed. His brashness had gone out of him. It made Ouyang think of that moment when you went to a fire in the morning, and instead of embers found only cold gray stones. It filled him with sorrow. “So you know. Of course you do. Does everyone?”

  “Not know, but suspect it. Would they be wrong?”

  Esen turned away. Looking at Ouyang’s mare, he said, “What did you name her?”

  “I haven’t.” Ouyang rubbed the mare’s nose. “Would it make a difference to how well she serves me?”

  Esen laughed sadly. “You don’t find that too cold?”

  “Do you name your sword? Men get too attached to their horses. We’re at war; they’re going to die sooner rather than later.”

  “I see you think so highly of my gift,” Esen said wryly.

  Despite his preoccupations, Ouyang smiled. “She’s been a fine gift. I think more highly of the giver.”

  “It’s normal for people to get attached to horses. To other people.” Esen sighed again. “Not you. You always push everyone away. What do you find in it, the loneliness? I couldn’t bear it.” The warm scent of animals rose up around them. After a long moment, Esen said, “Father would have killed him, had I not been there.”

  Ouyang knew it was true, just as he knew there was no possible world in which Esen could have let it happen. The thought pierced him with a feeling that mingled sweetness, longing, and pain.

  “I didn’t believe it,” Esen said. “Before. I thought—I thought maybe they just had their differences. I thought they could be reconciled.”

  That was the pureness that Ouyang wanted to protect forever. Esen’s large heart, and his simple, trusting belief in everyone. He made himself say, “You need to be careful of Wang Baoxiang.”

  Esen stiffened. “Even you, you think the same of him?”

  “He just destroyed the Empress’s brother. For what, a few insults? Those few households your father took from him? It makes you wonder what else he’s capable of.” Ouyang had the painful thought that Esen was like a pet that would look up at its owner with love and trust, and try to lick and wag its tail, even as its neck was wrung. He said, aching, “You trust too much. I admire you for it. That you prefer to draw people closer, rather than push them away. But it’ll get you hurt. Would you take an injured fox to your breast and not expect a bite? The worst injury you can do to a man is shame him. He can never forget it. And Wang Baoxiang has been shamed.”

  Esen said, “Baoxiang is my brother!”

  Ouyang kept scratching slowly at the lumps of shedding winter coat on his horse’s neck.

  Esen said again, more quietly, “He’s my brother.”

  They stood for a long time in the moonlight without talking, their shadows stretching out across the sea of silver grass.

  * * *

  The day of the hunt dawned warm and bright. Pale yellow clouds streaked the sky like banners. Attendants on foot went ahead through the tall grass, beating drums to flush out the game. The nobles followed. The sight of hundreds of mounted men and women covering the plain in all the colors of a field of flowers was one of the empire’s great spectacles. It should have been enough to lift anyone’s mood, but Ouyang’s was irredeemably gr
im. His hangover felt like justice. At the same time, the situation felt unreal. After so long, it hardly seemed like the moment had come.

  Esen rode up with an expression of forced cheer. His favorite bird, a female golden eagle with taloned feet as large as Ouyang’s fists, was perched on his pommel. Esen stroked its back absently. It was dearer to him than any of his human daughters, and Ouyang thought it was the only living being Esen missed from the palace while they were on campaign. “Why so dour, my general? Today we ride for pleasure. Isn’t that a rarity enough that we should enjoy it?” His servants had been careless with his braids; they were already unraveling, strands flying away in the breeze. Ouyang could tell he was determined to avoid thinking about the conflict between the Prince of Henan and Lord Wang, and mostly succeeding. Esen had always been good at compartmentalization. It was a talent Ouyang seemed to have lost. After a lifetime of keeping the parts of himself separate, now they all bled into each other in an unstaunchable hemorrhage.

  The Great Khan’s personal party was some distance ahead, heading for the rocky hills where tigers could be found. Ouyang could just make out the Great Khan, resplendent in snow leopard fur. Chaghan, benefiting from Bolud’s absence, rode at his side. As befitted the occasion, the Prince of Henan wore the kind of extravagant courtly attire he usually disdained, and was riding a magnificent young horse. Unlike the sturdy Mongolian horses that were trained to tolerate the wolf, bear, and tiger hunts that Mongols made sport of, Chaghan’s new mount was one of the prized western breeds known as dragon horses for their speed and beauty. Delicate and temperamental, it was a poor choice for a hunt, but Ouyang understood Chaghan’s reasoning: it had been part of the Great Khan’s reward for their efforts against the rebels. It paid to flatter the taste of one’s sovereign.

  The hills were dry and folded. Paths twisted along the edges of crevasses and ran underneath cliff faces. Hunched crab-claw trees clung in the cracks of house-sized boulders, beribboned here and there with the good-luck prayers of hunting parties from years past. The large mass of the hunting party gradually thinned as pairs and groups broke off to pursue their preferred game. Ouyang, who had his own specific game in mind, said, “My lord, I saw an ibex; I’ll go this way.”

  It was the first time he had ever lied to Esen.

  “Are you sure?” Esen said, surprised. “I didn’t see it. But if you’re sure, let’s catch it quickly. Then we can rejoin the Great Khan for the tiger hunt.”

  Ouyang shook his head. “Don’t waste your time with me. Better you join the Great Khan and let him see your skills.” He managed a wry smile. “Those others are only used to shooting at stationary targets, so I’m sure you’ll do well. I’ll meet you at the peak when we break for lunch.”

  He urged his mare away before Esen could argue. As soon as he was out of sight he stopped and let the reins slacken. The small gesture felt fraught with anticipation: as of the moment between hurling an insult at an opponent and waiting for his response. He had no doubt that fate would respond. Fate made the pattern of the world, and Ouyang was nothing more than a thread joining a beginning and an end.

  For a moment his mare stood there. Then her ears pricked in that familiar look of recognition, and she began moving steadily along the trail towards the higher ground that his game preferred. As if led. Ouyang’s skin crawled at the thought of what unseen guides she might be following. The way was silent except for his mare’s hooves on the hard ground, and the song of orioles. The smell of warmed rock and dirt rose up around him, cut through with sharper pine and juniper. He felt like he was in two places at once, but only tenuously in both. Here—as free and alone as he ever was—and also in the future, already seeing what would happen.

  As he gained height the trees thinned further. He dropped his mare to a walk and scanned his surroundings. He saw without surprise that it was the perfect location for finding a wolf. And then as he caught sight of a familiar cerise gown just off a lower branch of the path, a perfect target for every predator in the area, he mentally added: Or where a wolf can find you. Lord Wang was sitting reading on a rock overlooking the view, his horse tethered beside him. From his absorbed air Ouyang guessed he had been there awhile: he must have abandoned the hunt early and come here for some solitude.

  A shiver passed through the landscape. It was an absence: the orioles had stopped singing. Ouyang’s mare shivered too, her ears swiveling, though she was too well trained to make a sound. It was exactly what Ouyang had been looking for, but it only swamped him in bitterness. It was all perfect: everything he needed, dished up on a plate. It was perfect because his fate was inescapable, and it would happen no matter what he thought or felt or did.

  Lord Wang, oblivious, was still reading below. Ouyang felt a perverse curiosity to see how long it would take for the lord to notice the danger he was in. If he even does notice.

  In the end it was Lord Wang’s horse that noticed. It broke its tether, squealing, and clattered down the path. Lord Wang looked up with a start, then bolted to his feet. Slinking bodies flowed over the stony ground like cloud shadows, emerging from behind the rocks and out of the gullies, pouring down the path after Lord Wang’s horse. Wolves.

  One wolf broke from the pack and came pacing towards Lord Wang on long legs. Its movements were slow and deliberate: a predator confident of its success. Lord Wang made an aborted gesture, and Ouyang saw horror flash across his face as he realized his bow had been tied to his saddle. A quick look behind him showed him what Ouyang already knew: there was nowhere to retreat to. The beautiful view he had chosen had him trapped.

  “Try it, then!” Lord Wang shouted at the wolf. His voice had jumped an octave with fear. “You think I can’t take you?” Despite his grim mood, Ouyang nearly laughed as Lord Wang threw his book at the wolf. The wolf dodged it nimbly and advanced, tail low and shoulder muscles rippling. Ouyang unslung his bow.

  The wolf sprang: a hurtling, thrashing blur that slammed into the dirt just short of Lord Wang’s feet, Ouyang’s arrow buried in its side.

  Lord Wang looked up sharply. His drained face was brittle and vicious with humiliation. “General Ouyang. You couldn’t have done that earlier?”

  “Shouldn’t my lord be grateful I didn’t just stand back and watch it happen?” Ouyang said, feeling reckless with fatalism. He dismounted and came down the slope to where Lord Wang was. He ignored the lord and gathered up the surprisingly heavy corpse, then struggled back and slung it over his mare’s withers. She flattened her ears and showed the whites of her eyes, but in the brave way of the best Mongolian horses she held still as he vaulted back into the saddle.

  Ouyang extended his hand to Lord Wang. “Why don’t I take you back to the Prince, my lord? You can take one of the spare mounts from his train.”

  “Don’t you think my father would rather I be taken by wolves than see me?” Lord Wang spat. Ouyang could see he was weighing up the many hours it would take to walk back, versus the humiliation of everyone knowing he had been rescued by his brother’s eunuch.

  Ouyang waited, and felt not a shred of surprise when the lord finally said, “Fine.” He ignored Ouyang’s hand and sprang up behind. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get this over and done with.”

  * * *

  The Great Khan’s party had taken their lunch on a bald, round-topped peak that gave a superior view of the wrinkled hills and the grasslands beyond. By the time Ouyang and Lord Wang arrived, having traveled slowly due to riding double, everyone was already preparing to leave. Ouyang could see Chaghan, easily visible in purple, reining in his dancing, banner-tailed dragon horse as he conversed in a group of mounted nobles. Ouyang guided his mare carefully as they ascended the last stretch. The ground dropped off steeply around the peak and along the edges of the paths, and he had been a general long enough to have lost more than one man to similar terrain.

  The Prince of Henan’s grooms and attendants were clustered on sloping ground some distance from the nobles. As Ouyang and Lord Wang rode up the spar
e mounts stamped and blew at the scent of the dead wolf. The grooms might not be bold enough to look directly at a general, let alone give him a glare, but Ouyang knew they were cursing him: it would be their lives, too, if a horse went off the edge.

  “You,” Lord Wang said to the nearest groom, dismounting with all the poise of someone who hadn’t nearly been eaten by a wolf. “Bring me one of those spares.”

  The groom froze. His expression was that of someone offered a choice of death by beating, or death by steaming. “Lord Wang—” he faltered.

  Lord Wang said impatiently, “Well?”

  “My lord,” the groom said, cringing. “This unworthy servant offers his most humble apologies. But … it isn’t possible.”

  “What?”

  “On the explicit orders of the Prince of Henan,” the unfortunate man whispered.

  “The Prince of Henan … ordered … that I not be allowed a mount?” Lord Wang’s voice rose. “And what else will I shortly find I’m not allowed to have? Will I have to beg him for food, for firewood?”

  The groom saw something over Lord Wang’s shoulder and looked like his dearest wish was to roll up like a pangolin. Chaghan was bearing down on them with a dark face: a purple thundercloud promising a storm. As he neared them his high-strung horse caught the scent of wolf and shied. Chaghan curbed it rather too sharply and glared down at Lord Wang.

  Lord Wang met his eyes, pale and defiant. “So am I to find out by happenstance, from the servants, that my own father has disowned me?”

  Chaghan said coldly, “Your father? I thought I made it clear that you’ve lost any right you had to use that name. Would that my sister had died before getting you! Get out of my sight. Get out!”

  Chaghan’s horse rolled its eyes and threw its beautiful head from side to side. Chaghan was a master horseman, and under normal circumstances could have controlled even the rawest horse despite its growing distress from the smell of the wolf. But he was distracted, and in no mood to be patient. Surprised and annoyed, he dragged at the horse’s head. “Rotten son of a turtle—”