The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan

by Sherry Thomas

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.” And then, because I don’t want to keep lying to him, I say, “Now help me prepare. Go find out from Father where he’s kept our weapons from the South. Ask him which ones I can take, and bring them to me.”

  When Murong is gone, I close my eyes for a moment and exhale. Then I busy myself cutting and sewing a length of binding cloth, while wondering whether I should trim my hair. I’d lopped off a fair length when we first came to the north, when I needed to be out and about more ofen. Now, it’s slightly long for a man but still short for a woman—and I decide against it.

  I will allow myself this one nearly invisible act of defiance.

  As I finish with the binding cloth, Auntie Xia comes in. “I gave your boots some extra stitching and put cotton batting inside so they’ll be more comfortable,” she says. “Try them on and see if they feel all right.”

  I peel off my ugly cotton-filled cloth booties—the things people wear in the North to stay warm—and pull on my newly improved boots. When I stand up, Auntie Xia falls to her knees, tears flowing down her wrinkled face.

  “Auntie Xia!”

  She might be a servant, but she has been a constant in my life. After Mother passed away, it was Auntie Xia I turned to for a lap to lay my head on, for deep, uncomplicated affection that came with no demands.

  I try to pull her to her feet, but she remains on her knees. “We are in your debt, Hua gu-niang. My son and I . . . We already owe everything to your family, and now he owes his life to you!”

  “No, you owe me nothing.” I fall to my knees too. “You have looked after me—after all of us—all these years. Now it’s my turn to look after you and Dabao.”

  “But you are a girl. You shouldn’t need to go to war to look after us. And war . . .” She shudders.

  I grip her hands. “My father was one of the best swordsmen south of the Yangtze River. I am his heir. Do you think any Rouran soldier can stand in my path?”

  Are elderly women easier to fool than seven-year-olds? Which one wants more desperately to believe that a loved one will return against all odds?

  Auntie Xia looks at me, half in astonishment, half in wonder—and I have my answer. Even more than Murong, she needs to believe I will come back safe and whole.

  I lift her up. “I’m not afraid, so you don’t need to be either.”

  She is still studying me, peering deep into my eyes. I face her as if she were Yuan Kai and the duel were about to start. Often the outcome of a contest is decided before either party unsheathes a sword, Father has told me time and again. If your opponent believes you to be invincible, then it’s almost as good as if you are.

  Auntie Xia wipes away her tears and squeezes my hands. “As you say, Hua gu-niang. Since you are not afraid, I won’t be either.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  After Auntie Xia leaves, I sit down on the edge of my bed, breathing hard. This pretense of invincibility is draining. However nerve-racking the duel promises to be, I know I can take on one man, in broad daylight, under strictly controlled conditions. But in war, a single stray arrow can doom me—and I’m not ready to die on some frozen, desolate terrain, one corpse amoung thousands.

  I shake off the worst of my dread when Murong returns. He holds several pouches of hidden weapons, but my skin prickles at the sight of the cloth carrying case on his back.

  “What is that?”

  “A sword. Father says to give it to you.”

  To Murong, it is merely another sword in a household full of weapons; he is far more interested in calligraphy brushes. But this blade lies at the center of Father’s existence—and mine.

  According to legend, a master bladesmith once forged a pair of perfect and perfectly matched swords. They were treasured by his descendants, who looked after them with pride and reverence.

  For eighteen generations, the swords were kept in the family. But their next guardian, a great swordsman, was childless and alienated from the rest of his clan. He chose to give one sword each to his two most beloved disciples, Hua and Peng, for them to pass down to their heirs.

  But there was a condition: The keepers of the swords must meet in periodic matches. These contests would provide an opportunity for a “discourse on swordmanship,” where both sides could demonstrate their skills, receive instruction, and improve their technique. And as inducement, the winner would be granted the honor of keeping both swords until the next match.

  The matches were meant to be friendly. But in time, the friendly rivalry turned fiercely adversarial, even occasionally deadly. No longer contests, but duels.

  The one that crippled Father ended in a tie, the reason the Hua family and the Peng family each hold one sword at the moment. Yuan Kai’s mother is a daughter of the Peng family, and it is acceptable for a descendant carrying a different surname to represent the clan, if no one else can.

  Carefully I remove our legendary sword from its black brocade cover. Sheathed, it doesn’t appear all that extraordinary: The pommel features a fish-scale pattern, the scabbard a carving of magnolia blossoms. The whole effect is elegant but age-worn, something an antique dealer might consider not quite worth his time.

  But the moment the blade is exposed, the dealer would change his mind. I have never held a naked Heart Sea without feeling a chill slither across my skin, its menace unmistakable. Forged from bronze, it is strong yet flexible, unmarred by rust after long centuries. It is also beautiful, its surface adorned with a shimmering checkerboard pattern that the smiths of our lesser era no longer know how to produce.

  I trace a fingertip over the inscription on the sword. The ancient, spindly script is difficult to read, but as somber and stately as an emperor’s tomb.

  “Come here, Murong. Let me show you something.”

  “What is it, jiejie?”

  “Hold the sword, edge up.”

  Murong does as I ask. I pluck a hair from my head. “Watch.”

  I drop the strand of hair. It falls gently across the blade and cleaves in two.

  Murong sucks in a breath. “That is sharp!”

  I take the sword from him. “Yes, it is.” I smile. “Mother once said that the blade contains a bit of metal from a star that fell to earth.”

  He looks appropriately awed.

  “Go to the kitchen and see if Auntie Xia needs help.” I sheathe the sword and squeeze my brother’s thin shoulder. “She’ll be cooking a lot for tonight.”

  He leans against me for a moment before heading out. Carefully I cover Heart Sea, my fingers lingering for a moment on the carved magnolia on the scabbard. Mulan, I think to myself. Mulan means magnolia. I am named for the flower, which Mother loved for its noble beauty, rather than for Heart Sea. But still I feel a secret connection to the great blade, as if it were always meant to come to me.

  I leave my room to speak to Father. But as soon as I’m in the courtyard, I hear his voice. “. . . my fault. I have ruined us. Whatever I do, I cannot escape the ill fortune that I have created.”

  The pain in his words is a hard pinch on my heart. I step back over the threshold of my room. I expect a reply from Auntie Xia. But her voice, greeting Murong, arrives from the direction of the kitchen.

  Father is in his own room. He must be speaking to Mother’s spirit plaque, hoping that her benevolent spirit from the beyond will help us in the here and now.

  There is much that Father doesn’t tell us. Sometimes I wonder why. It isn’t as if I can’t see that he still misses Mother desperately, or that he is deeply troubled he brought us to a lesser life in the North.

  Then again, it isn’t as if I tell him much, or anything at all.

  Since Mother’s passing, at Father’s command, I have not gone out except dressed as a man. Or sparred with a partner except dressed as a man. Or represented him in any capacity except dressed as a man—and introducing myself as Hua
Muyang.

  Muyang is gone. No matter how I pretend, I can never be him. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t I be enough as Mulan, your daughter? What must I do so that you will stop treating me as the inferior imitation of your son?

  But these words I repeat only to myself. To him I say, again and again, Yes, Father.

  I take some time to collect myself before I cross the courtyard and enter his room. He is seated, grinding ink, a piece of paper weighed down on the low table before him.

  He glances up. “I will reply to Yuan Kai and accept the postponement.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  When I do not say anything else immediately, he asks, “What is the matter?”

  “Murong brought me Heart Sea, Father. Are you sure I should take it with me? What if—what if I don’t bring it back?”

  He frowns as if I’ve asked a stupid question. “Of course you will bring it back.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. Do I really need to point out that I might die in this war?

  But his expression is so forbidding I lower my head and say, “Yes, Father, of course.”

  “Use it well. Do not make me regret sending it with you.”

  The great swordsman has spoken. I have no choice but to bow.

  “Thank you, Father. I will bring back Heart Sea safely.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  At dinner, wine flows freely. Auntie Xia becomes a little drunk. Father too, but he is better at hiding it. By and large, I refrain. At the end of the meal, Auntie Xia presents a steamed cake made from ground lotus root and osmanthus honey.

  Murong, who has been quiet for most of the evening, gives me his portion. “Auntie Xia says you won’t have anything good to eat in the army.”

  I’m much more worried about how to keep my true identity hidden, living among so many men. “They’ll have to feed us something halfway decent. Hungry soldiers can’t fight.”

  “Only dried flatbread and pickles, Auntie Xia said.”

  “Huh. Guess I’ll be one of those soldiers who steal livestock, then. Or do you think they’ll let us raise a few chickens in the barracks?”

  Murong is intrigued by the possibility of a steady supply of eggs. Auntie Xia leaps in with thoughts on what scraps I can save to feed those chickens. Even Father contributes what he knows of animal husbandry. For a moment, this could almost pass for any other feast-day meal.

  Then bleakness returns to Father’s eyes.

  When I first dressed as a man, Auntie Xia would study me and frown. But you just look like a girl in boys’ clothes. I didn’t want to look or act like a man, but I wanted even less to be given a task and not do well. I stood with my shoulders back. I pulled my hair into a tighter topknot and made my face more angular. I walked faster, moving my upper body aggressively, taking up a lot more room.

  But nothing I did was enough.

  Until the day I put on Father’s expression. It is not the expression he wears most often, but it’s the one that immediately comes to mind whenever I picture him in my head. A severe look, just short of outright disapproval. A hard, unyielding look. And beneath the refusal and the near belligerence, a bleakness that somehow seeps through.

  A bleakness that makes me wish, despite my pride, and despite my resolute lack of any desire to be a man, that I were indeed his beloved son.

  I eat the steamed cake in too-large bites and almost choke.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The next morning, well before dawn, I dress and join the rest of the household by the altar. Father prays for the ancestors’ blessings while I abase myself before their spirit plaques.

  I barely slept during the night, lying in my bed, blinking up at the dark ceiling. And now a muddled fatigue has taken hold of me. Father’s prayers seem to come from a great distance, and I feel nothing beyond a woolly dread at what this day will bring.

  It is still dark when I strap Heart Sea onto my back and take my leave. I squeeze Dabao’s arm, hug Auntie Xia and Murong, and kneel before Father. “I’m going now. Everyone, please take care.”

  Auntie Xia sniffles. Murong sobs. But Father is as silent and still as the deepest night. I rise, brush the dust off my overrobe, and lead my horse out of the courtyard.

  At the last moment, I look back, only to see that Father has covered his eyes with his hand. All at once, my false calm shatters. I walk away, my own tears falling.

  At the north gate, I report to the officials in charge, give Father’s name, and watch as they remove us from the list of households that have yet to contribute an able-bodied male.

  “So you are Hua Muyang, nineteen years of age?”

  I need only to nod. But I hear myself say, “No. There must have been a mistake. My name isn’t Hua Muyang, but Hua Mulan—the same characters as the flower.”

  This does not please the official’s scribe, who needs to correct his copy of the roll, and all the other copies back at the sub-­prefecture. He sighs exaggeratedly, glances at my horse, and writes my name, the correct one, on a new list.

  That list of conscripts who have brought their own horses is given to two weathered soldiers with broadswords and crossbows on their backs. One, named Gao, takes a hard look at us. “So, you are the ones who are too precious to walk, eh?”

  The other riders glance at one another.

  Gao grins, revealing a missing front tooth. “Don’t worry. There’ll be enough misery for everybody, and I’m not going to hold it against you for being luckier at the outset of a war. But I do have to warn you—I’ll be handing over this list of names to the record keepers at the encampment. And if your names get there but you somehow don’t, the news will go right to your sub-prefect, and he’ll make poor men out of all the fathers and uncles who have generously supplied you with horses. And then he’ll drag those fathers and uncles off to take your places.

  “So if you’re thinking of slipping away when I’m not looking, don’t. Even if my colleague and I don’t pierce you with arrows as you flee, you will have nowhere to return to and your families will curse you forever. Do you understand?”

  Gao looks at us one more time and seems satisfied with the stricken expressions on the faces of the young men around me. “All right, then, let’s waste no more time.”

  We set out in two columns. I glance back at this nondescript Northern town I’d never heard of before we arrived from the South. I feel no particular attachment to the place, but my loved ones are inside, behind the high brick walls.

  I have been away from home, but never away from my family.

  Will I ever see them again?

  My earlier tears must have done some good: As I wrench my gaze away, my heart throbs dully, but I’m no longer overwhelmed by grief. I need to look ahead. I need to think about what I must do so that I can return home in one piece.

  The day is bright and cold. We ride through a brown landscape, some stretches still covered in snow. Every village and town on our way is quiet and empty, aching with the absence of so many fathers, brothers, and sons.

  We pass groups of conscripts marching in the same direction. Peasants, merchants, even a few whose attire indicates that they are scholars. And so many boys my age or younger. Some appear scared, some excited, the rest simply bewildered, as if they still haven’t grasped what is happening.

  At noon Gao leads us to an abandoned temple by the side of the road. We stagger off our horses. Gao keeps watch on them; his comrade has his eye on us. Most of the conscripts relieve themselves by the front wall of the temple, but I walk toward the rear.

  “Hey,” one conscript calls to me, “where are you going? You want an arrow in your back?”

  I give him a stare Father would be proud of. “I don’t like other people around when I go. You have a problem with that?”

  He blinks. His gaze flickers between my face and the sword at my back. Then he says to the other co
nscripts, as if to cover his own embarrassment, “I was just being nice. Guess that was wasted.”

  At the back of the temple, even though I hear no one approaching—and none of the men present can take a step without alerting me from thirty paces away—I hurry to empty my bladder, my heart pounding. I don’t know what the punishment would be if I’m discovered to be a woman, but I’m not eager to find out.

  When I’m done, I pant for a moment, relief coursing through my veins, and issue a silent apology to the god of wealth, to whom the temple is dedicated. Ironically, the god of wealth has fallen on hard times, the roof of his abode caved in, the gilt that covered his statue all gone. I am reminded of the dilapidated shrine before which I last fought Yuan Kai.

  I haven’t thought of him in almost a whole day, which hasn’t happened since our first meeting more than two years ago. He must have been conscripted—that much is obvious. Is he also traveling in a group, under the watchful eyes of seasoned soldiers? Or is he already at an encampment, trying to figure out how to increase his odds of survival?

  On the way back, I pass a well that still has a bucket on a rope and pull up some water to wash my hands. When I reach the others, they are eating their lunch. I turn my back to the wind so that I don’t ingest a mouthful of dust along with the stuffed buns Auntie Xia packed for me. In the often treeless North, dust is everywhere, whirling along the ground, leaping high with every stir of the air.

  By midafternoon, as we near the encampment, the road becomes congested. Long lines of conscripts, on foot and on horseback, are waiting to be let in.

  The journey so far has been leisurely: Our soldier escorts, in consideration of our draft horses, haven’t pressed us for speed. The sky has continued to be clear and cloudless and by now there is almost a hint of warmth under the sun. And we have just come through some low hills and descended into a wide valley—stony hills and a mostly barren valley, but still, more scenery than I’ve seen in a while—so the whole expedition has begun to feel like an unexpected spring outing.