Andre Norton & Susan Shwartz - [Central Asia 01]

by Imperial Lady- A Fantasy of Han China (epub)

  Lowering himself was what a Hsiung-nu might call it, but Silver Snow, before she did aught else, would write to the garrison commander whose father had served her own and beg him to send troops out on patrol. If they looked like allies massing against rebellious Hsiung-nu, so much the better. Vughturoi would never ask for help where he had meant to bestow it, but she was determined, all the same, that he should benefit from it.

  Sable’s face, already dark with concern for Silver Snow (who had to be mad, she clearly thought, if, at this moment, she called for writing material), went even more somber. Had her brother lived, he would have been the queen’s chosen messenger. Still, there was no time to regret; and it was not the way of the Hsiung-nu.

  Silver Snow’s hand shook as she picked up the brush. Did you shake so when you fought the bandits or the white tiger; girl? she asked herself. And is a brush not a weapon, just like bow or blade? You are a general's daughter and a warrior's wife. Write, then; and no more of this frailty!

  Despite Silver Snow’s impatience, the moon had grown to a faint, fragile crescent in the sky before Sable, Silver Snow’s thrice-vigilant guard, would permit her to try to rise. Before she actually was able to walk, however, the moon had grown more plump, and now assumed the shape of a slice of tempting, pale melon.

  Shaking off Sable’s offer of a supporting arm, Silver Snow leaned on her bow as, robed as befitted a queen, she limped out of her tent. She met Willow coming toward her and greeted her warmly She had not seen the maid much in the days since her injury. Lacking the services of Strong Tongue, Vughturoi had pressed Willow into use as a seeress and, incidentally, as a guard for the shaman whom she was replacing.

  The two women fell into step and walked haltingly toward the shan-yu's tent. Why, our gaits match, thought Silver Snow. Yet Willow walked without a crutch; while her foot ached each time she set it to earth.

  “It will mend, Elder Sister,” Willow, who knew her mind far too well to need to ask questions, told her. “Soon you will walk without pain and without a limp. I promise you, you will chase a little Hsiung-nu prince and not even grow short of breath.”

  “How fares my lord today?” Silver Snow asked Willow.

  The maid raised level brows in a surprise that she intended to be humorous. “Does he not tell you?”

  Silver Snow shook her head. “He has said very little, preferring—or so he told me—to rest and for me to rest.”

  What Silver Snow knew and would not tell Willow was Vughturoi’s reaction to her letter to the commander of the Ch’in garrison. “Once again, lady, you dare what I must not do! Though I may not ask for help, and do not need it, I shall be glad to see a troop of Ch’in soldiers, provided they speedily return to their own place.”

  At that point, Silver Snow understood that she had interfered as much as she dared and turned her efforts to easing the shan-yu's concerns. That he had been proven wrong had been a blow to his confidence; among the Hsiung-nu, such a blow could turn into a death blow. None of that, however, was something that she could tell Willow.

  Perhaps, as a shaman, she sensed it already and, in her own loving way, took steps to heal him too.

  Limping in step with her maid, Silver Snow entered the shan-yu's great tent. Heat, noise, colors, and the scent of mare’s milk and seething meat struck her like a blow, and she stepped back involuntarily, just as she had the first time she had met Khujanga. Her healing foot came down on a pebble, and she suppressed a desire to flinch or cry out.

  She had her reward in the next moment, as Vughturoi’s eyes lit at the sight of her, and he gestured for her to approach. He could not seat her in his own place nor rise for her; nor did she expect such immoderate attentions. Still, he saw that she sat beside him, that she was well and speedily served, and that the"messengers, both of Vughturoi’s own following and from other clans, who rode in and prostrated themselves before him paid her proper homage, too. Just as important, he insisted that the men from the other clans, when they hesitated to disclose their information before a woman of the Han, speak before her.

  She sat quietly, eyes downcast in the assumption of modesty that gave her time to deliberate. So. Tadiqan’s friends among the Fu Yu had ambushed his guards and allowed him to ride free! In that case, he must be on his way back to the people whom he hoped to make his own.

  Hoofbeats rose almost to a frenzy outside the tent, and a horse screamed, then grunted in exhaustion. Vughturoi’s guards leapt to watchfulness, weapons drawn, as a single rider staggered in. He was coated with yellow and black dust, and his eyes were red from sleeplessness. For the first time in her time among the Hsiung-nu, Silver Snow saw a man who looked like the picture that fear and ignorance had painted of her adopted people. Yet this man was perhaps the most trusted messenger that Vughturoi had with Basich gone.

  He flung himself down, more a collapse than a prostration, before the shan-yu, and gasped out news of a column advancing westward from the Ch’in garrison.

  “What of the Fu Yu?” demanded Vughturoi. His hand grasped the shaft of a spear and suddenly tensed.

  Seeing that, the man went utterly still, and Silver Snow reminded herself of a story of the pale barbarians of the Hu, who dwelt so far to the west. Their ruler, it was said, would execute the bearer of bad news rather than reward him as a source of intelligence.

  “It does not matter,” Vughturoi mused to those advisors who sat closest to him, “what the Yueh-chih pretender wants. Tadiqan wants this place, these tents; he will not destroy what he seeks to rule. Let us confront them all, however, with what they regard most highly.”

  He gestured at a servant. “Bring in my father’s trophy, the skull of the Yueh-chih’s chieftain.” Then he turned to his warriors. “Three of you, fetch me Strong Tongue.”

  Warriors as they were, fearless as they were reputed to be, the men looked uneasy. None of them wanted to confront the imprisoned shaman, the mother of a traitor-prince. Vughturoi had not gained the loyalty of his men by ignoring such signals. He nodded, paused, and, finally, looked down from his cushions at Willow where she knelt slightly behind her mistress. “The tribe’s new wise woman shall accompany you—if she will. See that Strong Tongue has what she needs to make a journey.”

  So it would be exile? thought Silver Snow. Unwise, unwise, to leave the likes of Strong Tongue and her son alive; yet it made sense. Vughturoi, too, feared to slay a shaman.

  Strong Tongue glowered as she walked before her guard into the great tent. She folded her arms over her broad bosom and almost contrived to make them appear to be a guard of honor for her, in her robes of hides and rare snakeskins and bits of glinting crystal. By contrast, Willow appeared to be insignificant; but in her hands lay Strong Tongue’s spirit drum. Most noticeable about Strong Tongue, however, was that a strip of hide had been tied over her mouth so that she could not use what gave her her name to curse the guards.

  “Well done,” approved Vughturoi quietly. At a subtle hand gesture, Willow took up a place nearer to him than to Strong Tongue, who flicked one contemptuous gaze about the great tent.

  “We shall await your son,” Vughturoi told her. “I have not forgotten, however, that he is my father’s son as well as your own. Thus, when he rides in, since his oath has proved to be worthless, he shall have two choices: death in battle or exile from the clan he has betrayed. Your choice shall be tied to his.”

  Strong Tongue’s jaws worked and the veins in her temples bulged as she fought the gag.

  “Restrain her!” snapped Vughturoi, and her unfortunate watchmen obeyed.

  More hoofbeats and a cry from one of the outlying guards t(dd those in the great tent that a troop of Hsiung-nu approached: Tadiqan’s men (those whom he had not slain for opposing him), Vughturoi’s own guards, who had been sent to fetch him, and even a few of the Yueh-chih.

  “I will meet them from horseback,” said the shan-yu. “Bid the warriors be ready.”

  Painstakingly Silver Snow levered herself up. How she hated this accursed injury, wh
ich made her body a traitor to her will!

  “You shall not ride, lady.” Vughturoi paused by Silver Snow and gently assisted her to her feet. “This is not a hunt that we await.” His eyes turned speculative, and Silver Snow held her breath.

  “Do not send me away,” she pleaded. “What refuge for me can there be on the grasslands? I am safest with you.”

  Her husband nodded and, though he was tense before what might turn into a battle, he smiled at her.

  Indeed, Silver Snow thought, as she hobbled, leaning on her bow, after the men, there was no refuge for her. More than any other place, this was the death country of which Sun Tzu had written. Yet, for women, all battles were death country, not the games of land and honor that many men thought them. She hazarded a glance at Strong Tongue, who walked with vast disdain among her guards, who had but moderate success in slowing their pace to accommodate Willow. Her limp made her as out of place in that band as Silver Snow herself; but her pale, set face and flaming eyes told her mistress that Willow, for one, was done with hiding, done with meekness. Like a fox whose lair and kits had been menaced, she was enraged, and her rage was all the more lasting for its very quietness. In her hands she still bore Strong Tongue’s drum. And that too was proper; whoever had been sacrificed to craft that drum must also be a witness here.

  None of the women had illusions that this would be a peaceful meeting. It was only the men who hoped. The women tried to prepare against catastrophe. Many would ride behind Silver Snow, armed with bows or the deadly lances of the Hsiung-nu. The eldest of the Hsiung-nu children would be with them.

  “Wait, oh wait!” Silver Snow whispered to Sable. On an impulse that she could not explain, she snatched up the skull cup that she so hated, shrouding it in a square of silk that she pulled from her voluminous sleeve. Then she hastened to join the other women.

  Sable it was who brought up Silver Snow’s horse; no warrior could be spared. She mounted with relief. On horseback, she was not lame. With a nod of satisfaction, she checked her bowstring, her supply of arrows, and the knife that she kept as a final weapon.

  Slowly, without the usual fanfare of shrieks and spectacular riding, the mounted Hsiung-nu warriors assembled outside the camp and waited. Overhead, the sun climbed higher in the sky, straining toward zenith. The wind, as it blew across the drying grasses, tinged now with the colors of autumn, made the land appear to ripple. Silver Snow hoped that it would not run with blood before sundown.

  “Sound the drum!” Vughturoi cried.

  To Silver Snow’s shock, he spoke to Willow. Transformed in that moment from waiting woman or wisewoman to warrior, she struck the spirit drum, and the air seemed to shiver with the drumbeat. That was well, too; the man or boy whom Strong Tongue had slain should have his share of the judgment that Vughturoi hoped to make today. For the first time that Silver Snow had ever heard it, there was no evil in the drumbeat as it summoned the clan’s enemies.

  As if it indeed had caused them to appear, Tadiqan and his men rode toward the camp slowly. They too rode silently, a menace whose very quietness made it all the more purposeful. Some were familiar to her; she recognized many faces and horses. Others, though, wore the trappings and arms of the Fu Yu or even the Yueh-chih, chief among them a young man whose eyes immediately sought out Vughturoi. Her glance fell at the wrapped bunch she bore on her saddle. She had been right; like the drum, that cup, which had been the source of such pain and such conflict, must be present.

  So many opposed Vughturoi! Dismay stabbed at Silver Snow almost as sharply as the arrow on which she had stepped, but she suppressed it, lest her son absorb her fear before his birth.

  Vughturoi drew a deep breath. Then his voice rang out over the grasslands.

  “Let Tadiqan, who was once my brother, ride forth.”

  = 22 =

  The discipline of the Hsiung-nu held true, and the lines of horsemen stayed where they were. With a contempt that showed in every leisurely movement of his body, Tadiqan edged his horse closer. So, Silver Snow noted, did the Yueh-chih’s lord. Vughturoi rode out to meet them.

  “Brother,” Tadiqan spoke, without the decency of allowing the shan-yu whom he betrayed to speak first. He might as well have spat. One of Vughturoi’s men shouted in outrage, but Vughturoi held up his hand for silence.

  “You profane the name,” Vughturoi told him, “and your oath as well. When I was raised to my father’s seat, you bowed yourself before me. Is this how you serve the clan?”

  “Yes!” screamed Tadiqan, his face beginning to go crimson with one of his rages. “You will make us into mincing copies of those half men of Ch’in, sell us into slavery for more silks and gems. That whey-faced girl who whispers by night of the splendors of her home will betray us all. Put her aside and ride free! Or, by all that is under heaven, step aside and let a man lead!”

  “A man?” Vughturoi asked, his own voice rising with a dangerous anger. “A man who hides behind his mother and wars on ladies? I call such a one not man but boy and traitor. And to that one, I give a choice. Exile or, here and now, before our men, a final submission. And if you betray that, know that my vengeance may not be swift, but it will be painful and utterly sure.”

  This time, Tadiqan did spit. “I shall have your place, and my kinsman of the Yueh-chih shall have your head!”

  “There is no dealing with a madman,” Vughturoi observed. “We shall speak when you are sane once more. You are worse than the people whom you claim to hate.” Contemptuously he turned his back on the traitor, and rode toward his own line.

  Silver Snow drew a deep breath, fully expecting to see a war begin. Stunned by the audacity of the shan-yu in turning his back upon an enemy known to be as deadly as he was treacherous, his men and those of the other side held their places.

  Then Tadiqan’s hands flashed to his bow, nocking arrow and drawing with the terrible grace that made the Hsiung-nu feared throughout the world. Before she could control herself, Silver Snow screamed, and the first arrow went awry.

  Time seemed to slow then. It seemed that Silver Snow sat her horse amid a field of statues in which only three people moved: Tadiqan, Vughturoi, and herself. Vughturoi, who took such care of his mounts, turned his with such speed that it screamed and reared. For that moment, he was so occupied in controlling it that he had no chance to draw weapon.

  He could be killed before he could defend himself!

  That shall not he! Silver Snow vowed. Though she was no warrior, she was a huntress of no mean prowess. Only it had been so long since she had ridden out with her bow! That made no difference. Even as she lamented her lack of practice, she seized an arrow without looking at it, nocked, and shot.

  A terrible whistling shrieked out and the arrow flew—not a deadly shot to throat or belly—but pinning Tadiqan’s arm. Silver Snow’s eyes widened. By some fortunate chance, she had used the single whistling arrow that she had preserved! Tadiqan screamed, not in pain, but in protest and dreadful fear as, from behind him, that whistling found an answer from the men whom he had trained to shoot upon hearing it.

  A hundred shafts whined out in deadly obedience that hurled Tadiqan from his saddle and toppled his horse. Arrows pierced man and horse so many times that some shafts had broken before they could sink into flesh. Blood seeped out from between the shafts and puddled in the trampled grass.

  Madly daring, Silver Snow forced her horse forward. “You sought a cup made of a human skull!” her voice rose shrill above the tumult of man and beast as she confronted the Yueh-chih. “Then take this!”

  She pulled the cup from its silk wrappings and showed it to the man who had sworn vengeance because that cup existed at all. “As a loyal son,” she told him, “take that and bury it after the custom of your kind.” She replaced it in its shroud and held it out, offering it to his suddenly reverent hands.

  “You do not need another such cup,” she added quietly. Her eyes pleaded with him to agree with her even as she hoped that Vughturoi would not race forward and slay
him to protect her.

  “No,” he muttered, turning the wrapped bundle over and over in his hands. “We do not, now that we have my father’s honor back. Lady, I have heard of you. They hail you as the queen who brings peace to the Hsiung-nu; and now I see that it is true. I will do homage to you," he said, and dismounted.

  Even as Vughturoi rode up, his eyes distended, his horse lathered, Tadiqan’s former ally went to his knees, then to his belly. Quick to seize the opportunity, Vughturoi beckoned his own men forward to encircle the others.

  From behind his own ranks, however, rose a tumult of horses, shrill screams, and finally the deep-throated death shriek of a warrior.

  Silver Snow dared to glance behind her.

  “It is Strong Tongue!” cried Sable. “Somehow she freed her hands, slew one of her guards, and seized her drum!”

  Silver Snow had heard that great grief, or rage, or fear could make people inhumanly strong. Thus it was with Strong Tongue, who now strode forward, beating the spirit drum to a rhythm more savage and more compelling than any she had ever heard.

  Faced with a shaman mad with grief and rage, even the bravest among the FIsiung-nu blanched, and many on both sides hurled themselves from their horses, to cower with their heads to the ground.

  “I have it!” screamed the deposed shaman. “And soon I shall have vengeance on you all for my son, I and my demons!”

  “Mad,” gasped Willow from where she sprawled on the ground. Silver Snow could see white around her eyes, which glared with the terror of madness that haunted human and beast alike.

  A howling wind blew up about Strong Tongue. Even as a guard tried to pierce it with his spear, it seized him and tossed him high and far. They could hear bones shattering as he landed. Still the wind intensified until it drowned out all other sotinds. Mouths worked on prayers or shouts; horses tossed their heads, whinnying in barely suppressed panic; and all anyone could hear was the whining snarl of the wind, a miniature version of the kuraburan, or goblin storms, of the deep desert, a thousand-thousandfold worse than Tadiqan’s whistling arrows . . . until the first of the demons laughed.