The Emperor waved, and footsteps backed down the hall, headed, no doubt, for wherever Mao Yen-shou sequestered his greatest treasures. Only then did Silver Snow have time to * invent fears for herself. What if Mao Yen-shou had sold or broken up the armor? He could not have sold it; for who would buy such a treasure? And its worth lay not so much in the jade or the gold but in its workmanship and antiquity; thus, he would not have broken it up, either. The guards would have to find it.
Even though her reason told her clearly that that was the truth, her teeth chattered, and she wanted very much to weep with fear. Yet, this was death country, and she had laid her plans, launched her attack, and, like a general—like her father himself—she must abide by the wisdom of her battle plan, whether it brought her to victory or to disaster.
She heard footsteps echoing toward the hall. The guards must be returning! She refused to look at them, concentrating instead on the sounds about her. How slow, how labored were their steps! Surely, they walked as if they bore something heavy . . . something like two suits of jade armor?
How she hoped so!
The guards strode up the hall, dropped what they bore on the floor, and bowed abjectly. Now Silver Snow forced herself to look at what they bore: she knew those chests! From them Mao Yen-shou had lifted the jade armors and claimed them for his own.
The Son of Heaven gestured impatiently. Well, his agitated hand motion revealed, open, open them.
The peaceful, mellow green of fine jade and the splendor of gold winked out of the chest at them.
“I trusted you!” the Son of Heaven shouted at Mao Yen-shou, who prostrated himself, his face on the floor. “I trusted you, and you painted me this lie of a likeness, this slander of a portrait of a lady worthy to be Illustrious Companion. Had you not treasure enough already? Was I not a generous master?”
Mao Yen-shou’s face went so red that Silver Snow feared, for a single, unselfish moment, that he might collapse right then and there. Almost, she could pity him. His mouth opened and closed; the folds of flesh at his throat, enclosed by the high collar of his rich silk robe, shook, but no words came out.
“Take him away.” The Emperor waved his hand, his voice bored. “I want his head to adorn the western gate by sundown.”
This time, Mao Yen-shou did find voice enough only for a sharp, wordless cry of protest before the guardsmen dragged him past his former companions (who drew their robes aside from the contamination that he now represented with a rapid hiss of satin) and out toward his death.
For a moment everyone in the hall stood transfixed, staring at the door. Then the eyes flickered back to Silver Snow.
“This one begs the Son of Heaven to accept her father’s worthless gift for the sake of the love and loyalty that he has borne the Son of Heaven all of his life.” There! The words, the ones that she had journeyed all the way to Ch’ang-an to say, were finally out.
The Son of Heaven rose from the Dragon Throne to the accompaniment of gasps of amazement. Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the jade armor and ran one finely kept hand over the smooth, cool jade.
“We accept the gift,” he announced. “And we thank Chao Kuang, whom we restore to all of his old titles and honors. Once again, let him be marquis and general. The scribes shall record it, and an edict shall be sent to Chao Kuang.”
Silver Snow laid her brow against the cool floor so quickly that the kingfisher feathers fluttered in her hair and the pearls rang against one another. Tears heated her eyes, and what felt like a knife transfixed her at the center of her chest; but she did not care.
If I die in the next moment , she told herself, I have lived long enough. I have my victory , and, my father, you have your honor back. To her astonishment, a gentle hand touched her hair. “Rise, lady,” whispered the Emperor. “I have my burial armor, it seems. But, who is the lady to wear its companion through forever? You, perhaps?”
“Dread Emperor,” whispered Silver Snow, “I am pledged to the shan-yu. What am I beside the sanctity of your word?” The Emperor gestured to the Hsiung-nu party. Not at all to Silver Snow’s surprise, the young, richly dressed barbarian strode up, bowing tardily and with an awkwardness that was astounding, considering that the young man must have spent his entire life in the saddle. He was muscular, stocky, though not as portly as a Ch’in prince would be, and about as tall as the Son of Heaven himself.
“Prince Vughturoi,” called the Son of Heaven, and his voice was very crisp. “Let us discuss the bargain that we have made. This is not the princess whom we promised to your father. Another lady will be provided as a bride. Will you and your companions accept that lady?”
The young Hsiung-nu ambassador jerked his head at Emperor Yuan Ti, then turned back to his fellow ambassadors and the shamans who stood in attendance on them.
The eldest of them stepped forward.
“Emperor,” he said bluntly, “we will not.”
11
“We are well content with this lady as a bride for our shan-yu," said the old barbarian. “She is very fair, and our kam-quams, those who speak to spirits, tell us that she is most auspicious.”
“I cannot let her go,” the Emperor whispered, more to himself than either to Silver Snow or to the Hsiung-nu. “My lost lady . . . the rustle of a skirt as she walks down the hall. I have lost this lady, dreamed her, and found her. Shall I see her for the first time, only to lose her again?”
The Hsiung-nu muttered among themselves, and the crowds of courtiers and ladies in the hall parted, as if they expected the Hsiung-nu to draw bows in that very instant. Such ripples and eddies in the groups enabled Silver Snow to see Li Ling for the first time since she had entered the hall. To her astonishment (and no little horror), he winked at her.
Then she turned her attention back upon the Hsiung-nu. She could understand, however haltingly, their speech.
“He seeks to take this lady from us and give us some lesser woman, perhaps with a squint or a mole,” said the man called Vughturoi. “Yet we are not prisoners in this city of stone tents. Shall we permit it?”
“Indeed not,” said the eldest of the ambassadors. “Surely if this is the lady promised to the shan-yu, it is an auspicious sign.
Behold her beauty: were the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom not afraid of us, or did he not favor us above all others, would he part with such a treasure to buy peace at our hands?”
Vughturoi snorted something about gilded birds and the impossibility of keeping a peace treaty, given . . . But he was immediately hushed.
Silver Snow found herself looking once again at Li Ling, who had edged adroitly into a position where the Emperor was certain to see him and demand his counsel. He raised a brow at her. Do you wish to stay? he seemed to ask.
If she did not want to leave Ch’ang-an, she might well stay; stay and adorn the Inner Courts as the most illustrious of Illustrious Companions in centuries, perhaps, with a palace full of women to fawn upon her. She could avenge every slight ever dealt her; she could beg to bring her father to court, enrich him, favor Li Ling . . .
Or she could be true to her birth and her upbringing, and could keep her word, which lay in the Emperor’s promise to send her to the frontier. She had the example of her father, who kept faith during the ten years of his exile among the very Hsiung-nu to whom she would be dispatched, and thereafter, when he was condemned as a traitor. She had the example of Li Ling, who continued to serve, though he lost reputation, family, and manh(X)d thereby, but who served because he had vowed to do no other.