It might well be, Willow had said, before retreating to a silence that the lady had condemned as sullen, that she resented the role of go-between, casting her as it did into the ranks of elder ladies, those too old to catch the Emperor’s eye or bear a son to win favor and fortune for her and her family.
What, Silver Snow thought suddenly, if she had been able to offer the older woman some gift other than herbal brews? The thought came as a shock. Appalled at the very idea of bribing someone who stood in the place of an imperial representative, she tried to force the thought from her mind, but it stubbornly remained: Lilac had much to teach her, much to impart; but there was a price for such learning. The thought of bribery was abhorrent. Besides that, Silver Snow knew that nothing among her robes and ornaments would attract this lady’s envy. Nor could aught be spared from her exceedingly modest baggage. Nothing, of course, except the jade armor— and that was reserved for the Son of Heaven himself.
She sighed, sounding in that moment like Lilac, and longed to sweep the curtains aside and gape like the meanest but most lighthearted peasant wench as her cart’s wheels jolted into the well-worn ruts in the road that led into Ch’ang-an.
Now, as they were driving up to the great gates of Ch’ang-an, Silver Snow dared not look beyond the travel-stained curtain! It required her long moments of strict self-reproof before she was able to accept that restriction with the dignity that Confucius and her father enjoined upon her. If only Lilac’s condescending chatter had provided her with the advice that she knew that she needed in a city as huge and splendid as Ch’ang-an! Had Lady Lilac been a true go-between or even simply a woman with kindness in her heart, Silver Snow could enter the Palace as fully briefed as a general who had sent out well-trained scouts. Given that kind of information, she could set about her campaign of winning first the Emperor’s attention, and then his devotion.
Failing that, Silver Snow could but do her best and make the most of such information as the lady let drop.
But Lilac Silk spoke only of dear Mao Yen-shou, of the magnificence of the Son of Heaven, the splendor of the First Concubine’s robes (not that she expected Silver Snow ever to reach the illustrious height that she would be clad in such), the fragrance of pavilions built of cassia wood to scent the breezes which, in the spring, made the kingfisher feathers woven into the screens shiver as if they were living clouds. She sighed over the beauty of the round temple south of the city where, every spring, the Emperor worshipped the Sun. She was like a bird with splendid plumage who repeated only what she had heard, and who sang only for those who provided her with seed ... or gold.
The clamor of the Eastern Market rose up about them. Silver Snow had heard of that market. A bloodthirsty roar shook the curtains of the cart, and she shuddered.
“Why shiver, child?” asked Lilac. “Possibly, they execute a thief or a killer. Justice must be served.”
It was fine for Lady Lilac, whose cloak was lined with sable and trimmed with fox—fox! (Willow had taken one look at it and shrunk even further into her silent wretchedness)—to ascribe Silver Snow’s shudders to the cold. She had not faced bloody death, had not seen a man die, shot by an arrow from her own bow, had not wept as an old friend died in anger and pain, then avenged him, all the while in mortal fear of her own actions even more than those of the bandits.
“At least,” Lilac continued, magnanimous in the face of Silver Snow’s uneasiness, “you do not put yourself forward to gape at the market like a peasant. Beyond it, well, perhaps if we are discreet, no harm will be done if you glance out at the palaces as we go by. See the fine, high walls with the trees behind them. Each of those palaces has such gardens as you would not believe. How lovely they are in the spring, when the lilacs bloom!”
They drove past block after block. Used to the meandering tracks of her northern home, Lady Silver Snow found Ch’ang-an’s conformity to a grid oppressive in its regularity. How could so many tens of thousands of families be forced into such narrow spaces? Indeed, the palace walls with their enameled signet tiles and their fine towers were magnificent, but how many poor crowded together in hovels this very moment so that the palace-dwellers could luxuriate in their lavish gardens?
Countryfolk were poor; Silver Snow herself was poor; but she had always had the freedom of the outside air. Now, she must surrender even that.
Glancing sideways, she could see how bright Lilac’s eyes were as the ox-cart rumbled toward the palace gate, which gaped to receive it. The sound of the gate’s closing behind them was the most final noise Silver Snow had ever heard. At a sharp command, the driver stopped the oxen, and the shaking and jolting that had been a part of Silver Snow’s life since leaving the North more than a month ago ceased.
This will be my home for as long as I live! Will it be prison or paradise? In either case, she knew, she must see it—immediately! Longing and fear gripped her just as Lady Lilac sighed in satisfaction. Before she could control herself, her hand— shaking, she noted, much to her shame—jerked out from her furred sleeve to the curtains. Lilac’s hand shot out not a whit more slowly; and its grip was such as to leave pale crescents in the too-weathered skin of her charge’s wrist.
In darkness and shadow, they sat, Silver Snow, the self-assured woman beside her, and, trying her best to simulate the cushions that wedged them into the cart, Willow, whose bright, frightened eyes flicked about her as might those of a fox caught in a snare. This Palace—it could be the greatest snare in Ch’ang-an. Or it might, Silver Snow compelled herself to remember, be the instrument of her success and her father’s pardon. Before Lady Lilac could rebuke her yet again, she straightened the folds of her robes, consciously smoothed away the wariness that she knew tightened her lips and eyes into an expression as hunted as Willow’s, and forced a bland, satisfied look upon her face.
Behind them, the baggage carts that carried her dowry, tribute silk and gold looted from her father’s impoverished estates, clattered to a halt, but here the cries of the drivers were subdued.
Abruptly a beam of light struck Silver Snow’s eyes, and a man’s voice made Lady Lilac gasp in horror.
“Lady,” said the official who had escorted Silver Snow from her father’s house.
He deserved, at the least, thanks for his care of her; and thanks were all that she had to give, thought Silver Snow.
But, as she opened her mouth on words of gratitude, Lady Lilac shook her head.
“No!” she whispered. For the first time since her acquaintance had been forced upon Silver Snow, the horror in the woman’s face was unfeigned—but not unmixed. In the sudden light, fear showed in her lips and eyes, revealing cruelly the skill with which she had applied her cosmetics only that morning and, even more cruelly, the lines and dry skin that they had been intended to conceal.
“The eunuchs will come now. Speak no word!”
Willow had frozen into the stillness of a cornered animal. Even her eyes were glazed now. Silver Snow held herself still, erect, as if she were hunting; but her breath came fast. “Remember, lady, what I said about well-wishing.”
She could not speak to thank him and dared not bow; but she shut her eyes briefly, and hoped that the official would take that for understanding and farewell.
Then the curtain dropped down again, leaving the ladies in darkness. She heard footsteps, a pause, as if men bowed deeply or saluted, and then the official’s voice, commending the Illustrious Lady and her charge, the most worthy Silver Snow, to the keeping of the thrice-esteemed Mao Yen-shou.