The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan

by Sherry Thomas

  “And immediately I was terrified. A man who has committed as many wrongs as I had does not deserve to feel such joy. I was convinced that moment of feverish relief shone a light on you and exposed you to all the infelicitous elements in the universe. I used to tremble when you so much as sneezed. And whenever you were the slightest bit unwell, I would be beside myself.

  “Finally I traveled a hundred li to consult with a famous priestess. She said that if I wanted to keep you safe, then I should fool the lords of the Underworld into thinking that you did not exist. ‘Have her pretend to be Hua Muyang, your son,’ she said. ‘The lords of the Underworld already have Hua Muyang and won’t send their minions for him again.’

  “Your mother thought it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, and I don’t blame her for thinking so. But after she died, I did as the priestess advised. I’d already lost her and Muyang; I couldn’t lose you too.

  “And I never mentioned what happened with the princeling’s mother because—because to this day, I cannot bear to look back on the man I was then, or face all the suffering that I have caused.”

  He still has his eyes on the painting, and I’m still staring at his profile, trying to understand everything he has said.

  He has always loved me. He has never wished I were my brother.

  I could have gone to my death not knowing that. I could have drawn my last breath wishing that I mattered to him. I could have—

  I’m only saying that I can never fully experience how difficult my aunt’s life has been. And that I regret all the resentments I used to carry.

  Let me not be angry at him now for things that did not happen, or for things that should be left in the past. And let me not give myself resentments to carry—that cannot possibly be the reason I survived impossible odds to live to this day.

  I go to him and take his hands.

  Tears spill from his eyes. “I’m sorry, Mulan. I’m so sorry.”

  “You are my father,” I tell him. “I can never adequately repay you for raising me, and you do not need to apologize to me. But there is a family here . . .”

  He grips my hands. “That you do not despise me—you don’t know what that means to me. And as for the family, I knew before the start of my trip that I must face them this time. And perhaps I’m at last ready to —”

  “Hua Manlou, you come out here!”

  The voice can only belong to her ladyship, back from Futian Pass to find the man she hates the most in her own home, invited by her own nephew.

  “We’ll go out there together,” I tell him.

  A tremor passes beneath his skin, but he looks at me with tired yet clear eyes. “Yes, Mulan. Let’s go out there together.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  A pair of strong manservants under Yu’s supervision carry Father out and place him on a cushion on the ground.

  Kai, his father, and his aunt stand in the courtyard, the latter two still in their traveling capes, her ladyship’s flying about her like a flame.

  “Kai, give your opponent’s sword to her.”

  I notice only then that Kai, who looks openly apprehensive, has both Sky Blade and Heart Sea. I left Heart Sea in my rooms earlier, as one does not, under normal circumstances, enter the royal palace fully armed.

  I accept Heart Sea from Kai while glancing between him and her ladyship. The royal duke looks as if he wishes to say something to his wife, but he doesn’t.

  She announces coldly, “Today is the day of the duel. Both opponents are present. The rules stipulate that three martial arts experts should serve as referees. Master Yu, Master Hua, and I will fulfill those roles. You may begin.”

  I have lost count of the days. Today is the day the duel would have taken place had the Rouran not attacked.

  Kai and I look at each other. I can tell that all kinds of disastrous possibilities are racing through his mind, but when I behold him, I feel only affection and happiness.

  Discourse on swordsmanship, I think to myself, remembering what he said about wishing for a more literal version of the contest.

  I smile at him and mouth the words, putting the emphasis on “discourse.” Startled, he stares at me a moment before returning a tentative smile.

  And then a full, radiant one.

  I lift my still-sheathed sword. “I begin with a maneuver called ‘the crane glances back.’”

  Which is an elegant name for an attack that switches direction midthrust. I perform the move, but at a fraction of its normal speed—and seven paces away from Kai.

  “I would counter with ‘the meteor crosses the sky,’ which neutralizes the risk posed to my right flank by your move, and exploits the fact that your move exposes your left shoulder.”

  Standing where he is, he sweeps a still-sheathed Sky Blade before him, his motion slow and majestic.

  “But my move was a feint,” I say. “Just when I’ve convinced you that I am using ‘the crane glances back,’ it mutates into ‘the dragon’s tail tangles the clouds,’ which takes advantage of your unguarded torso during ‘the meteor crosses the sky.’”

  “And I have anticipated that, because ‘the meteor crosses the sky’ changes easily to a centered stance that seems defensive but is in fact an ambush waiting to happen.”

  He smiles again at me.

  “What are you two doing?” shouts her ladyship.

  “Discoursing on swordsmanship,” answers her nephew. “But in a manner befitting our surroundings. In the beginning, the point of this contest was that both sides improved their skills.”

  “We have fought four times now, and we have come to know each other’s style and tendencies very well,” I add.

  Father looks almost as stunned as her ladyship. The royal duke smiles in relief. Yu is too dignified to smile, but his eyes soften with approval.

  Kai and I continue to discuss our craft. He points out something that I have failed to notice myself, which is that I tend to overadjust when I attack to the left. And I tell him that his stance is slightly insecure in certain maneuvers, leading to a slower reaction time.

  He salutes. “I am fortunate in your instruction, my esteemed opponent.”

  I return the salute. “As am I. I have learned much from you, Your Highness.”

  “I might have learned something too,” says the royal duke mildly.

  His wife doesn’t take it in the same spirit. She glares at me. “Are you mocking me?”

  I bow to her. “No, your ladyship. Your nephew and I have fought real enemies together and come through as friends and comrades. We will not raise our swords to each other again, save as sparring partners, training for mutual improvement.”

  “So I am to consider this travesty a tie?”

  “Your ladyship, if I may,” says Father. He gestures for me to come to him. With my help, he gets up on his knees. “I am at fault in all this. My selfishness has brought dishonor to me and pain to many. I have no words that can make up for what I have done, except sorrow and regret.”

  He kowtows three times each to the royal duke, her ladyship, and the princeling—the three people most affected by the death of the princeling’s mother. While supporting him, I follow his lead.

  “And if your ladyship will accept this token of my humble contrition . . .”

  Father takes Heart Sea from me and holds it above his head.

  I feel a twinge of regret, losing the great sword that I can finally call my own. But this is the right thing to do, and the feeling of solidity and substance in making such a choice outweighs any vanity or possessiveness.

  With a deep bow, Kai takes Heart Sea from Father and hands it to her ladyship, who regards this object she has so long desired with a strangely detached look. As if she is realizing for the first time that what she has desperately yearned for all along was peace in her own heart, which no blade, however legendary, can bring her,
not even when it is offered by her nemesis on his knees.

  The royal duke comes forward, lifts me with his own hands, and helps me to settle Father back on the cushion. Tears rise to my eyes at the kindness in his. This is a man who has suffered a grievous loss, but still chooses to see my father’s pain and self-reproach.

  Kai comes forward too. With another deep bow, he places Sky Blade, his own sword, in Father’s hands.

  Both Father and I stare at him in incomprehension. Her ladyship gasps. “Kai, what are you doing?”

  “Master Hua, please accept this as a token of my apprecia­tion and gratitude to your daughter. I am convinced that if it were not for her, neither the emperor nor I would be alive today, and the streets of this city would be awash in blood.”

  Kai bows yet again and returns to the side of his aunt, who doesn’t appear half as furious as I expected her to be, though she does glower at him. “Oh, and it’s yours to give now?”

  He leans in and whispers in her ear, but to those of us whose hearing has been sharpened by years of training, he might as well have shouted his words from the rooftops. “If you wish the swords to be reunited, Mother, perhaps you can see your way to arranging a match between me and Miss Hua?”

  Kai and I sit shoulder to shoulder as our small boat drifts lazily in a field of water lilies.

  I never thought I would see Lake Tai again, yet here I am, surrounded by her clear, abundant water, breathing in the fragrance of high summer.

  We have been on assignment in the South, a delicate yet dangerous mission which we have just concluded. And Kai has arranged for this small holiday near my old haunts before our return to the North.

  “Thank you,” I murmur in his ear.

  “I’ll do anything to make you happy,” he murmurs back. “You’re less terrifying when you’re happy.”

  I laugh. I am happy. And I am happier yet to realize that while the South is as beautiful as I remembered, this time, when I leave, I will not miss it as much. That even as my heart sighs over the absolute loveliness of the lake turning gold and red in the light of sunset, I am looking forward to returning to the North, my new home.

  And to all the challenges and rewards of my new life.

  In June of 2017, my agent emailed me out of the blue and asked if I had any interest in doing a YA retelling of the ballad of Mulan. My first reaction was laughter, not in derision, but in sheer astonishment. On paper I seemed a good candidate for such an adaptation: I grew up in China; I’d made a career out of historical fiction; I’d even produced two books, set partly in China, featuring a young woman who is a highly skilled martial artist. But in reality I’d never had the slightest interest in the legend of Mulan.

  But now I was intrigued.

  The original ballad tells the very simple story of a girl leaving home in her father’s stead to go to war and then coming back. I could have taken it in any direction I wanted, and I chose to infuse it with elements of wuxia, a uniquely Chinese ­literary genre that explores themes of honor, sacrifice, vengeance, and forgiveness through the adventures of almost mythically adept martial artists. The editor who suggested the retelling, Cheryl Klein of Lee & Low Books, liked that approach, and we decided to go forward on the project.

  And then I realized I knew next to nothing about China in the fifth century AD, when the story of Mulan is most commonly inferred to have taken place. I didn’t know what people ate—it turned out that many staples of my childhood diet, like potatoes, tomatoes, and peanuts, originated in the New World. I didn’t know what people read—most of what I considered ancient Chinese poetry dates from the Tang Dynasty and later, hundreds of years after Mulan’s day. I didn’t even know whether Confucius had been born by then. (He was, in fact, born about a thousand years earlier—which should tell you a lot about the depth of my ignorance.)

  So I set out to learn about the time period. And what I learned challenged, even upended, many of my own notions of what it means to be Chinese.

  Though I remembered little of the animated Disney version of the story, I did remember that the invaders were called the Huns. (Whether any of the nomadic tribes that clashed ­repeatedly with the Han Chinese were, in fact, the Huns is a matter of debate—there is no definitive evidence.) So while I was not surprised that in the fifth century, the dynasty that controlled the northern half of China had to contend with incursions from a nomadic confederation known as the Rouran, I was shocked to learn that this northern dynasty was itself nomadic in origin.

  After the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 AD, and until it was unified again under the Sui Dynasty in 581 AD (approximately a hundred years after the setting of this book), China was in a state of almost constant reconfiguration. The Three Kingdoms, the Six Dynasties, Sixteen Kingdoms, Northern and Southern Dynasties—those are just some of the names used to describe various periods within this generally tumultuous era.

  Northern Wei, the dynastic time and place where the ballad of Mulan is typically assumed to have occurred, was one of these Northern and Southern Dynasties. It was founded by the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe, one of the nomadic peoples that had settled in northern China centuries earlier.

  In discovering this, I realized the north of China—and the south, too, with its indigenous peoples—was far more diverse than I’d supposed.

  The debate concerning Sinicization you read in this book was also real. What is Sinicization? Think of it as the Chinese counterpart of Americanization, where peoples from many backgrounds converge into a single national identity. For example, the policy of giving Xianbei families Han Chinese names was later actually implemented. This meant that what I always took to be a rather monolithic Chinese identity was actually forged of the collision and melding of many cultures and many peoples.

  Through writing this book, I learned that in its day, China had been quite the melting pot. (The founder of the Tang Dynasty, often considered the pinnacle of Chinese civilization, was himself half-Xianbei.)

  That the age-old story of Mulan can actually be a timely exploration of whose voices are heard and whose stories get told.

  That a girl who goes to war and finds her courage can at the same time unlearn ingrained biases and unpack her own assumptions.

  All of which have made writing The Magnolia Sword one of the most rewarding experiences of my career, and for that I could not be happier.

  Xiong means elder brother in Chinese, di, younger brother. Xiong-di, as a term, can refer to brothers in general, or it can be how one addresses a man younger than oneself. Di by itself would have been a more intimate address. Had Kedan not revealed to Tuxi that Mulan is a woman, at some point Tuxi would start addressing her as Mulan di, to indicate the depth and significance of their friendship. That’s also why he addresses Kai, once his own position is known, as Kai di.

  Jiejie means elder sister. Mulan would call Murong didi. Gu-niang is a generic respectful address for a young woman.

  While words for members of a family are always gender-­specific—and often convey relative seniority between parties—Chinese as a whole is less gendered than many other languages. Gendered third-person pronouns did not come into use until the twentieth century, and the language makes no grammatical changes in response to gender. So it would not be terribly difficult to speak of someone without revealing their gender and without lying about it.

  The Huns—a nomadic people of Central Asia—have entered the Western cultural imagination as barbarian invaders, thanks in part to their attacks on the Roman Empire a few decades before the start of this book. There have been scholarly arguments but no definitive evidence that the Xiongnu and the Huns are one and the same, or that they even belonged to the same loose confederation of nomadic tribes. I elected to refer to the Xiongnu once as “the Huns” so that readers will have a better understanding of what, culturally, the Xiongnu symbolized to the Han Chinese.

  At the time of the setting of
this book, the Chinese divided a day into twelve shi, each approximately the equivalent of two modern hours. I didn’t want to introduce yet another concept here, so occasionally I did use “hours” to express lengths of time.

  During my research, I kept coming across references to wine in the time period, which puzzled me. Grape wine was available, yes, but I was pretty sure I was reading about alcoholic beverages made from grain. Weren’t all such beverages hard liquor? And then I learned that distillation, as a common practice, didn’t start in China—or elsewhere in the world—until centuries later. So the grain wines the Chinese drank then were probably around 10 percent alcohol by volume, stronger than beer but less potent than your average modern-day wine.

  There are no definitive dates on when chairs began to be used in China. There were stools earlier, introduced by the nomadic tribes, but the general consensus is that proper chairs probably did not come into use until the Tang Dynasty, several hundred years after the setting of this book, and probably did not entirely replace sitting on mats at or around low tables until the Song Dynasty. Until then, in formal settings, Chinese people sat on their knees and shins, with the buttocks on the feet.

  At the border garrison, Tuxi, Mulan, Kedan, and Captain Helou play Chinese chess, or xiangqi, which dates back to the Warring States period (453-221 BC). Like Western chess, the game represents a war between two opposing armies. During the Tang dynasty, the playing pieces were renamed, so it’s possible that the piece nowadays referred to as the chariot was known as something else in Mulan’s day. But chariot sounds cooler, so chariot it is in this book.

  The legendary swords Sky Blade and Heart Sea are based on an archaeological artifact known as the Sword of Goujian, unearthed in 1965 in Hubei Province, China. The Sword of Goujian is estimated to have been made during the Spring and Autumn period (771 to 403 BC). And when it was discovered, nearly two and a half millennia later, it had not rusted and still held a sharp edge.