Chao Kuang nodded warm approval. The lamplight struck sparks of light from his fur collar, shone on his vermilion sash, reflecting upward until the broad, familiar face appeared to be bathed in light.
“It may be that you too may come to ‘adopt foreign customs’ to such an extent that you esteem your exile. Assuredly, I shall pray to the Ancestors that you do so. My disgrace meant that I might not betroth you as befitted your station. Nevertheless, I had always meant, insofar as propriety might permit, and perhaps somewhat further, to allow you what latitude I might in a choice of husband. But alas, my child, to this summons I can allow no indulgence.”
Silver Snow bowed to the mats. Had she been betrothed, she would not have been offered this dangerous blessing, this opportunity to act to retrieve her father’s honor.
He gestured at the chest at the outer reaches of the firelight. “The twenty rolls of tribute silk and two hundred ounces of gold ...”
So much? That would beggar their house! Silver Snow, who oversaw the household records as might a first wife, gasped, then flushed scarlet with shame. Her father continued as if he had not heard her outburst.
. . are ready for presentation to Mao Yen-shou upon your arrival. You have the jewels and robes that were your mother’s and my First Wife’s, as well. And, there is this.” Laboriously Chao Kuang rose. Obedient to his wish that his daughter not witness his infirmity, Silver Snow averted her eyes until the thump of his cane upon the mats indicated that he had reached the other mysterious carved chest that she had earlier noted.
At his gesture, she rose and approached. The lid lay back, and lamplight glittered off a splendor of jade plates and gold wire wrought into the replica of a man fully clad, even to the hood for the face, and the booted feet, in armor. Silver Snow bent close to eye the jade. Its color was that of stone precious in value, brought from across the Land of Fire and through the Jade Gate into the heart of Han. In itself, this armor was burial gear worthy of Heaven’s Son—or Heaven itself.
“There is another such beneath the rolls of silk and the gold,” said her father. “They were carved long ago to serve as shrouds, when our Ancestors were princes in this land. Alas, we have fallen far; and the last and greatest of our falls has been mine own. The Son of Heaven may have once heard that such a treasure lies in our possession, or he may not. Still, should you be so fortunate as to receive his favor, I charge you to present these suits of jade armor to him. He may wish to save one for himself, another for you; or he may throw them to his slaves: I care not.”
But he did, Silver Snow thought. He did. The jade armor was the last great treasure of their house, and he entrusted it to her as a general might entrust a banner to the youngest of his warriors to hearten him for a test.
“Perhaps when you present this gift, he will recall the most humble, unworthy, and wretched of his servants,” said Chao Kuang. His voice roughened, and he turned rapidly away.
For a long time, her father and she maintained silence. Silver Snow heard the clatter of dishes and voices raised in other courtyards in the house. The banquet in honor of the official who brought the edict—it must be under way, and her father had left it to speak with her, mere girlchild though she was. She tilted her head to listen, and he nodded.
“Indeed, I should return to my guests, but my heart is heavy within me. For, daughter, this must be our farewell. Tomorrow’s dawn will see the official go from here; and you must go with him. You shall have your gifts, and your maid, and whatever escort can be contrived. And you go with my blessing—” Silver Snow dropped to her knees.
“I do not expect that life will treat you too harshly,” said her father, limping back to his cushions. “For is it not written in the Analects that to be fond of learning is close to having wisdom? I know that you are fond of learning; and, in the Inner Courts, you may have opportunities to learn much that is lacking here.”
Silver Snow’s tears spilled over onto her sleeves, leaving round marks on the embroidered silk. “But not from you, honored father,” she whispered.
To her astonishment, just as he had done when she first saw him, he held out his hand to her. With small, hasty steps, she went to him and took it; and he drew her into a close, warm embrace.
“May all our Ancestors smile upon you, my daughter,” he said. “It may yet be that you shall bear a son to worship them, and our line shall not live in disgrace or die out altogether.”
For a moment longer, he held her, and she smelled the camphor in which, all summer, his sables had been preserved.
“Now,” he said, “I must indeed return to my guests. I congratulate you on the success of today’s hunt: a good one for your last.” Deliberately, as befitted a disciple of Confucius, he kept his voice even, seeking to return them both to the wholesome serenity of conduct that the Master taught.
Silver Snow withdrew from her father’s embrace, blinked once, furiously, and commanded her lips not to tremble.
“I shall see you depart tomorrow,” said her father. “But this shall be our true farewell. If you have time and the means, I charge you, write to me.”
She bowed deeply, and listened to her father’s uneven tread and the measured thump of his ebony cane as, slowly, painfully, he descended the stairs, and walked across the courtyard toward the room in which feasted the official and his officers who would, tomorrow, whisk her away from the only life that she had ever known.
The air in the room was fragrant with pine, almond, and artemisia; and the lamp shone brightly upon her as she curled into the cushions where her father had sat, weeping as she bade farewell to her home. Though excitement and splendor, she knew, might well lie ahead of her, she wept as if there were no end to tears in her whole world.
3
As the daughter of a degraded noble, Silver Snow had never dwelt long on what her wedding might be like, knowing that any marriage her father would be able to arrange would not be a mating between equal ranks. Consequently, she could not complain of a limited dawn farewell upon leaving her father’s home; nor that she wore, instead of the crimson and face-enshrouding headdress of the bride, serviceable sheepskins and ancient furs over her heaviest robes; nor that she was handed into a sturdy, enclosed, two-wheeled cart rather than into a chair hung with bells and bright trappings. True enough, her dowry—the tribute silk and gold stripped from her father’s already impoverished holdings— was loaded into carts and onto packbeasts to make the monthlong journey west and south to Ch’ang-an, the capital.
Also packed were whatever robes and ornaments she and Willow had contrived from her own and the remnants of her mother’s and the First Wife’s belongings. Hidden among the rolls of silk was that great treasure that Chao Kuang had entrusted to her in hope of melting the Son of Heaven’s heart: the jade funeral armor far too fine for anyone but an Emperor and his consort.
Oboes, pipes, and drums were supposed to accompany marriage processions. The only music for her was the ringing of harness bells from the chariot of the official who had brought the Son of Heaven’s edict.
To be sure, light from lanterns and torches, such as might grace a bridal procession, bobbed and flickered about her, casting an austere glimmer on the axes and lances borne with such pride by the messenger’s carriage. The steam of their breaths rose above the lantern-bearers and the soldiers, as the official, muffled to the eyebrows in fox furs (Willow’s mouth twisted at the sight of those), took the place of honor in his splendid equipage.
Cloaked somewhat by the interplay of light and shadow, her father looked as wasted and wan as after his escape from the Hsiung-nu. From behind the cart’s curtains, Silver Snow peered at him, desperately eager in these last few moments to record each line of his weathered face deep in her memory. She knew that, be her fortune fair or ill, she was looking upon him for the last time. That he had done her the favor of rising and dressing to see her off was precious to her. Of recent years, he usually awoke coughing in the morning. This morning, however, he was not rasping of breath, perhaps because of the potion that she had made, by Willow’s teaching, yesterday. She dared now to twitch aside the curtain, and when he glanced at her, she bowed in proper leave-taking.