“The portraits!” Suppressed laughs and shrieks of affected horror rang out in the courtyard where the willow trees had begun to bud. Three ladies passed the small court that had been assigned to Silver Snow; none stopped to call in at her door to invite her to come view them.
“So he has finished these paintings?” Silver Snow mused, with only Willow as an audience. She bent her head over her own brushstrokes. “Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity: each has its time.” Painstakingly she drew characters that she hoped her father would not find too unworthy. By now he must realize that she would be unlikely to achieve their fondest hopes. Let him, at least, realize that she was suitably resigned and that,. as he had said, she had found some occupation in study.
She raised her brush once again, but found that her hand was shaking. After so many weeks, the mere mention that the completed portraits of the court ladies would be submitted to the Son of Heaven for his choice could reduce all her philosophy to a sham.
“Willow?” Her voice trembled too.
At once the faithful maid was at her side, her head bent as if admiring her mistress’ writing.
“Willow,” whispered Silver Snow, “I know that Mao Yen-shou has painted no fine portrait of me. 1 know how foolish it is even to dream. But if I do not see it, if I do not know for certain, I believe that I shall never sleep again.”
Willow nodded. “Then go and see, Elder Sister.”
“I do not dare to,” Silver Snow flinched as if she faced the ridicule that had so often troubled her in dreams that she dared not admit, even to Willow. “At least, I do not think I can bear to be seen. Willow, I know that you ...”
“Indeed, yes, little mistress. I have explored the courts, Inner and Outer, and have seen this Son of Heaven about which these fine ladies chatter like so many jealous nightingales. Which, I make bold to say, is more than any of them have, so far. A fine, upright man, I must say, though I cannot understand one such who prefers to look upon paint and silk rather than on beautiful ladies.”
“Willow!” Despite Silver Snow’s apprehension, Willow’s irreverence made her gasp with guilty laughter.
“In all my prowlings, though, have I found a place where you might hide and view the portraits? Is that what my Elder Sister wants to know?”
Silver Snow nodded reluctantly.
Greatly daring, Willow put out a work-hardened hand, its three middle fingers all of equal length, to touch Silver Snow’s trailing sleeve. It fluttered as her hand shook despite her attempts to control it. “Is this the brave lady who avenged the worthy Ao Li? Courage, Elder Sister! I have found such a place from which you may see and not be seen. It is well that the Son of Heaven will come to the Inner Courts; to bring a lady into the Outer Courts might be perilous. Come you with me, though, and you will be safe.”
Silver Snow allowed herself to be tugged from her mat onto her feet. Sweeping up her long robes, she hurried after Willow through dusty ways that, she thought, not even the designer of these pavilions would remember. You will be safe , Willow had said, but Silver Snow doubted it.
“This way!” hissed Willow, and Silver Snow crept into a tiny passage on the third level of the Hall of Brilliance. She squeezed through it into a space the size of a small cabinet, gazed out through a peephole, and stifled a gasp.
“Mistress, I beg you, do not sneeze!” Willow whispered.
Silver Snow could only shake her head faintly. Just once in her life, she had ridden out on a sunny day in winter at noon and glanced from the sun to the snow and back into the sun. The very strength of its brilliance had made her reel in the sacjdle, and she had ridden thereafter with black specks before her eyes. She blinked and expected to see such specks dance before her eyes now too. Even the robes of the musicians and servants were finer than her most elaborate gowns; the robes, hats, and parasols of those officials who ran into the Son of Heaven’s presence chamber and prostrated themselves before the Dragon Throne provided a vivid magnificence against which the gauzy finery of those ladies who had dared to assemble appeared like Tung Shuang-ch’eng, the fairy who, in the legends that Silver Snow had loved as a child, guards the crystal snow vase.
The ladies clustered in one corner, occupying themselves, or pretending to do so, with the placement of their sisters’ ornaments, the float of a sleeve, the particular angle at which a scent bag fell from a lavishly embroidered sash. But their eyes, beneath their plucked and painted brows, kept flickering toward the ranks of the eunuchs where, in a place of pride, his companions arrayed behind him, stood Mao Yen-shou, awaiting the Emperor’s pleasure, his young assistant hovering close at his plump shoulder.
Silver Snow drew a deep, shuddering breath. Finally, she permitted herself to gaze upon this Son of Heaven for whom she had journeyed so long and so fruitlessly. Despite his youth, the Emperor Yuan Ti bore himself with the dignity of a man at least of middle years. He wore his heavy robes, embroidered with five-toed dragons, negligently, as if he would much prefer the dark simplicity of a scholar’s gown, and he kept his eyes resolutely averted from the bevy of ladies who watched and sighed over his every move.
“Wan Sui /” Silver Snow whispered dutifully. “May the Emperor live ten thousand years!”
Was it her imagination, or, in that moment, did the Son of Heaven look up as if his vision could pierce the wall behind which she had concealed herself? She flushed, and tried to hear what he was talking about.
The Emperor apparently shared the court’s preoccupation with the Hsiung-nu. At least that subject intrigued him far more than the chance that, among such pictures, he might find a lady who would be to his liking. From the way he spoke and the way that the eunuchs replied, he had been discussing them all day; and, when he had perforce broken off council to come into the Inner Courts, he had brought what he clearly felt to be more pressing concerns than a new chief concubine with him.
Because none of his advisors except his eunuchs could accompany him into the Inner Courts, his eunuchs must now serve to discuss it rather than generals, treasurers, and ministers of state. Their attempts, coupled with a lack of interest that was total and a lack of information that came close, to humor their Emperor pleased neither eunuchs nor Emperor. Mao Yen-shou’s shining face bore a poorly concealed petulance; several of his underlings flared their nostrils in attempts to conceal their yawns; and the Emperor himself grew impatient.
From her vantage point, Silver Snow could see the ladies droop as they realized that they could not compete with the Son of Heaven’s interest in negotiations with the Hsiung-nu. It would all be unfamiliar names and threats of violence to them, Silver Snow was sure. To her, however, the names were well known as antagonists or worthy opponents of her house. She longed to creep closer to hear the discussion that, against strict propriety, the Emperor had brought into the Inner Courts where all should be lightness, beauty, and peace. A vain, foolish custom, she told herself, and was immediately aghast at her daring to have such a thought.
The Emperor looked up dissatisfied, waving aside those eunuchs who had stood closest to him. What—or whom— was he seeking? Certainly he glanced about as if he lacked something ... or someone. Then memory seemed to come to him. He nodded and beckoned. To the hissed amazement of the eunuchs, out walked one among their number: thinner than most; his face weathered and lined, where his brother eunuchs’ cheeks glowed like plums; his eyes thoughtful, a little wry. While the splendid silks of the other eunuchs’ robes sgemed to rival the gowns of the ladies whom they guarded, this one wore a plain scholar’s robe. He bowed himself to the floor, and when he replied to the Emperor’s questions, it was in a voice deeper than properly belonged to the eunuch’s kind.