Day by day, the weather grew steadily cooler, and the wind that swept down from the great bowl of Heaven to ruffle the fur of her cloak and hood became fiercer and dryer. In it, she could smell drying grass and the bruised, hardy plants of the North.
They had had music from sundown late into the night. Flutes and zithers had played, and her maids had sung. Willow passed wine and sweetmeats about on delicate plates; and, for once, no one had grimaced or recoiled from her. Seated in her tent, basking in the light of many lamps, Silver Snow, her maids, and her companions had drawn together, the music linking them in a unity that was the warmer, the finer for the wind blowing outside and the fact that it had not long to last.
Finally, as the lamps burned lower, casting shadows on the tent’s taut walls, Silver Snow had let herself be coaxed into singing.
“This is a song of the North,” she explained, and then she had sung, the wind outside and the drums within fit counterpoint for her sweet, reedy voice.
Abruptly one of the ladies gasped, hand to mouth. Roused from a trance of music-making. Silver Snow started and broke off her song.
“Forgive this wretched, foolish one, Imperial Lady,” wept the woman. “But outside, outside, I saw a shadow, and . . . oh, it frightened me!”
That had ended the night’s music. Silver Snow had had much ado to prevent that lady’s cries and tears from spreading like fire across dried-out brush. When she could spare time to look up, the shadow of which the woman had spoken was gone, assuming that it—one particular shadow among the shadow-dance that played on the tent’s walls—had ever been there.
Shortly afterward, she had dismissed all of her other attendants, laid aside her heavy garments, and sighed in the peace and solitude.
* “Good hunting, Elder Sister,” whispered Willow as the girl sank down on a pallet at the foot of Silver Snow’s own bed-place.
In the light of the one tiny jade lamp that had been left to be extinguished, she rose upon one elbow to study her maid. Willow’s eyes glowed green, reflecting the lamplight, filled with the desire to run free and to hunt. Perhaps she wanted to roam free forever, Silver Snow thought with a pang.
Then Willow blinked, and her eyes were only those of a young woman’s—tired and red-rimmed from the touch of wind and dust.
“No,” whispered the maid. “I do not speak for myself, but for you. This is a royal hunt on which we go; you hunt out a future for yourself, and I—I follow at your heels.”
Then she smiled, showing white teeth that were incongruously, delicately perfect in such an undistinguished face.
The next day, they spotted the Yellow River, the huge, unruly dragon of a river that swept across Ch’in, bringing life to the lands—or disastrous floods. They would follow the river even farther north, to the rocky pass where Yellow River met the Purple Barrier of the Great Wall, where Ch’in ended and the grasslands of the Hsiung-nu began.
For now, the river was quiescent, a strong, wide, rippling thing that extended from where they rode to the horizon.
A flicker of motion on its nearer bank drew Silver Snow’s attention, as, apparently, it drew the attention of the Hsiung-nu, who nodded among themselves, and reached for bows and quivers.
“Riverbirds,” whispered Willow, coming up beside her mistress’ horse on the donkey that sweated and sidled but, nevertheless, bore her. “Did I not tell you, lady, that we would have good hunting?”
“Quick, Willow, ride back and fetch my bow,” Silver Snow ordered. Unworthy, unseemly it might be to boast, but she would like to bring down at least one of those waterfowl before the Hsiung-nu, especially before that taciturn Prince Vughturoi. They should see that their new queen could provide food as well as eat it, and that she could ably defend herself.
Besides, some omen-making part of her mind recalled that she had been hunting wildfowl the day that the summons had come from the Palace. To shoot down another bird today would be an auspicious event.
Willow laughed mischievously, handed over the bundle that she had strapped to her saddle, and rode away. Silver Snow unrolled it: there lay a quiver of arrows and the bow that Silver Snow had borne in the North and with which she had slain the bandits during her journey to the capital. Silver Snow tested the string, nodded at its faint, sweet twang, and ignored the Hsiung-nu, who, for once, were startled into grins at the sight of the Imperial Lady, bow in hand.
A fox’s bark yapped from the riverbank, panicking the waterfowl and sending them crying and flapping into the air. The Hsiung-nu drew as one, and Silver Snow drew with them, firing once, then again, almost as rapidly as they.
Birds fell, some upon the land, some splashing into the shallows; and the Hsiung-nu rode forward to retrieve them. Their shouts of triumph rose, then changed. Quickly Prince Vughturoi rode back from the riverbank and gestured, as if begging—as much as Hsiung-nu ever could beg—permission to approach her. Draped before him on his saddle were two plump fowl. One had been felled with two arrows, so close together that their feathers touched. The second had been a clean kill—one arrow, shot neatly through the bird’s neck.
“Lady,” he said, pointing to the bird that had been killed with two arrows. He looked puzzled, so puzzled that, clearly, he gave no thought to the possibility that Silver Snow might flinch at the presence of blood and death, “This arrow I know. It is of the fletching common in the grasslands. But this arrow—and this one, a fine shot, too—I do not know at all. Is there a marksman among the soldiers of Ch’in who ride among us?”
Silver Snow reached out one tiny hand to touch the arrow. Its fletching was indeed familiar, the work of her father’s bowyer. She reached into her quiver, and brought out the arrow’s mate. Then she smiled and, very quickly, glanced away.
Finally they reached the pass where great river and Great Wall met. Strangely enough, in this sheltered place, the winds were fainter, warmer, and the grass still was green. Because the Hsiung-nu for whom Prince Vughturoi had sent had not yet arrived, soldiers and servants pitched tents and unpacked for what might prove to be a long stay.
Silver Snow dismounted without aid. After days in the saddle, she had regained all of the hardiness that she had feared that her time in the Palace might have cost her. Nevertheless, she thought, as she straightened her cloak, the land here was fair, if bleak. She would use the respite to write to her fathers, she thought, with a wry smile, all three of them: Chao Kuang, who had begotten her; Li Ling, his friend, who had saved her from despair and had taught her; and Yuan Ti, the Son of Heaven, who had adopted her to toss her away, yet who had, in the end, grieved over his decision. That was her obligation; it was also her pleasure. Thanks to Li Ling, she even had silk fit for the task.
She was not, however, to have uninterrupted tranquillity for the task. The instant that Silver Snow’s tent was pitched and that her ladies were free to come to her, they broke out in tears and wails of grief and fear.
Silver Snow sighed. Willow winced. The Hsiung-nu and Ch’in soldiers, not faced with the need for self-control, grimaced and grinned. Silver Snow bent over the most distraught of the ladies.