Imperial Lady (Central Asia Series Book 1)

by Andre Norton

  The drum flew from her hand; but she stood firm above the shan-yu, who lay face down, his scanty beard fouled with ashes and spittle.

  Despite the heat of the evening, Silver Snow shuddered and turned over the old man with hands that felt as if she had bathed them for half a day in an ice-fed stream. His body felt as light as a dead cricket, and already his eyes were dull, glazed with the dust that had filled them as he fell.

  He had been dead before he had hit the ground.

  Dead, thought Silver Snow. And with him died her immunity, as poor a thing as it was, to Strong Tongue and her pernicious son, who would rule if Strong Tongue could summon him from wherever he rode among the flocks of the royal clan.

  “Vughturoi,” Silver Snow murmured. “I must summon him.” Who could she send to find him? She turned, her eyes seeking out Willow, who hastened toward her with a terrible ungainliness that threatened to overturn her at each step.

  “Call for your champion, but he will come too late,” Strong Tongue assured her. Though she carefully avoided turning her back to Silver Snow, she stooped with a kind of monumental assurance to retrieve her spirit drum from the tangle of rugs against which it had rolled.

  Silver Snow could imagine its voice, throbbing out over the still air, summoning back Tadiqan to claim the title, flocks, and power of the shan-yu . . . and Silver Snow herself. Bile flooded her mouth, and she feared she would collapse on her knees by the hearth and profane it further by retching until she was empty. Still, she was younger, fleeter than Strong Tongue.

  Drawing her knife, she flung herself toward the drum and stabbed into its taut drumhead, which parted with a sigh like someone’s last breath. Forgive me, she thought, though she did not know to whom she appealed. Perhaps she but released a spirit who had struggled in torment during all of these years since Strong Tongue had used human flesh to give her spirit drum a voice.

  Silver Snow panted as she rose to her feet to confront Strong Tongue. Afraid—certainly she knew fear, perhaps fear even greater than what she had endured when she waited for the bandits to attack on the road to Ch’ang-an or when she slipped out from her tent to stalk the white tiger. Yet she also knew a sort of relief. With Khujanga dead, the woman was now openly to be counted as her enemy. Silver Snow held her dagger at the ready.

  Strong Tongue simply folded her arms across her massive bosom and laughed. With insolent slowness, she thrust one hand into her robe and pulled out a tattered, bloodstained roll of silk bearing bore seals that Silver Snow recognized.

  “The quarry of the white tiger’s hunt,” jeered the shaman.

  “Give me that!” demanded Silver Snow. She leapt forward to score Strong Tongue’s hand and snatch the precious letter, which brought news and counsel from Ch’in. Her dagger drew a thin, bloody line down the older woman’s hand, but, in the next moment, a shove sent her reeling across the tent to sprawl onto a pile of cushions.

  Strong Tongue followed her and stood above her. “Lie like that and wait till Tadiqan comes. And while you wait, think on this!”

  She tore open the letter’s bindings, which should have been opened with respect, and dangled the silk with its exquisitely clear brushstrokes before Silver Snow.

  “What does it tell you, girl? To coo over the savages”—she spat out the word—“until we are as weak as you of the Middle Kingdom and can be overrun? Does it tell you to beware of the Fu Yu, who will be as my son’s strong right hand to push you back beyond your foolish wall, then topple it on your head? And not just the Fu Yu. He who should have ruled the Yueh-chih rides with them and at my son’s command will raise an army! He has sworn to have Vughturoi’s skull as a cup, in vengeance for the ill-use of his father, and until he can obtain the skull of your Emperor!”

  “Give me that!” Silver Snow launched herself once again at Strong Tongue, and once again the woman flung her down.

  “Do not try your strength with me!” cried the shaman. She snapped her fingers, and a slave brought her the skull cup that had contained what Silver Snow might—should her life turn as bitter as Strong Tongue hoped—wish that she had drunk. The shaman wiped the cup on a square of leather, then set it on Khujanga’s seat, above where Silver Snow had fallen. “Lie there and prepare to welcome my son and your new lord . . . daughter!”

  Contemptuously she turned her back on the smaller woman and walked toward a fire that still burned brightly. Her path took her close beside the body of the shan-yu, and her robes flicked across his face. Laughing, she hurled the letter from Ch’in into the flames.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Elder Sister, Elder Sister!” Willow flung herself down beside Silver Snow. “Are you hurt?”

  “Never mind that!” Silver Snow gasped. All the menace that Strong Tongue had loaded into that single word daughter restored her to herself in a way that no compassion, no tenderness, might have. Once again, she and Willow crouched in a shabby wagon, afraid of the bandits who bore the mark of the crimson eyebrows, afraid but determined to die rather than to be violated. Once again, she faced down a corrupt eunuch before the Son of Heaven.

  She had been hailed as the queen who brought peace to the Hsiung-nu. What did it matter if the shan-yu to whom she was wed lay dead? She was still queen of the Hsiung-nu, and by all that she valued, she would have her say in who would be her next lord.

  “Vughturoi,” she ordered Willow. “We have to fetch him.”

  The first prince to return and to view his father’s body would inherit his title: that was the law. So, it would be a race, Silver Snow knew, between Strong Tongue’s powers and whatever magic that Willow might summon. Or any fortune that she herself might merit.

  To her surprise, Willow did not creep into a corner and enter the agonizing spasms of the change from maid to fox. Instead, she lurched past a crowd of Hsiung-nu, matching shove with shove, staggering but somehow managing to stay upright, until she stood shaking in the twilight. A chattering, yapping sound came from her lips and was answered from all sides. For a moment longer, Willow stood so. Then she dropped to her knees and with one outstretched, shaking hand smoothed the fur of the huge fox that had emerged, seemingly from nowhere, at her feet. It—no, he—nuzzled her hand, barked once more, then vanished into the night.

  Then, slowly, Willow started down the slight slope on which the great tent had been pitched toward where Basich lay. Roused by the shouts and the uproar in the great tent, he had seized his own weapons and now hurried, as best he might, limping, as Willow did, upslope toward her. He seized her by one arm, and ushered her, protesting, back into the tent.

  Silver Snow went over to the body of the old shan-yu. She herself had tried earlier to turn him over, and succeeded but partially; now his eyes stared up at the roof of the tent, and his arms were flung wide. He was an old man; he had been a good man in his way, and a friend to Ch’in; and he had been kind to her. It was neither proper nor dutiful to let him lie there asprawl, lacking the dignity of mourning and attendance. She knelt and held her hand over the glazed eyes from which all cunning and all humor had fled forever until they stayed shut after she took her hand away. Then, with a corner of her sleeve, she wiped the grime and dried spittle from his face, tried to array the sparse beard on his chin, and to ease the dreadful, contorted expression on his face.

  Then it was that a drum began its insistent pound . . . pound . . . pound. Strong Tongue had wasted no time in repairing that damnable spirit drum of hers.

  And whose was the skin that she used this time? Silver Snow shuddered.

  Always before, Khujanga had risen to her defense when she was in danger. Any hope that she might have had that he had but swooned was fully dead now. Her eyes filmed over,and tears fell onto her hands as they worked, straightening out the twisted limbs, easing the shan-yu’s body into a posture that was more seemly.

  Drops of blood sank into the dusty carpet beside him. Silver Snow let out a tiny scream as Basich dropped down beside her. Raw scores on his face showed that he mourned his dead leader accord
ing to the custom of the Hsiung-nu, who drew their knives and gashed their cheeks to display their grief. They wept, not with tears, but with blood.

  “Permit me, lady.” His voice was husky, and he averted his face as he stooped, picked up Khujanga’s body, and bore it to the rugs before his usual seat where he laid the old man out in state. He glanced upon the grisly cup and grimaced.

  Silver Snow drew up a cushion at the dead shan-yu’s side, just as she had often done when he was alive. She felt no fear, no abhorrence of the dead.

  “She”—he gestured with his chin at Willow—“says that she has done what she might to fetch my prince. I too shall ride . . . ”

  “Ride?” Silver Snow asked. “You can barely walk!”

  His blood-smeared face gleamed with sorrow and a kind of cold pride. “You forget, lady. I am Hsiung-nu, and we ride almost before we walk. My mare’s back is better than a bed to me. I shall fetch back the prince to ward us.” He let out a wordless shout, and staggered from the tent.

  Silver Snow’s women came and crouched down beside her. Ringing them were the oldest men of the tribe, those too old to fight. The younger warriors, those who had not ridden out with Vughturoi or Tadiqan, watched, their eyes avid, curious. All bore bleeding gashes across their cheeks; all carried blades or bows; and all had their private allegiances—whether to the shan-yu who was dead, to the elder prince, or to Vughturoi, Silver Snow forced herself not to guess.

  What if I ordered, “Kill me that witch?” she thought.

  As clearly as if she knelt at her father’s feet, his face floated into her thoughts. She must not give orders that would not be immediately obeyed—or that she could not herself enforce.

  She was but queen to a dead shan-yu, and she bore no child; the time to obey her would be the time when the Hsiung-nu could determine whether she would have the power with their new ruler that she had enjoyed with the old.

  Yet, Strong Tongue tried to poison me. She as much as admitted it to . . . my husband.

  No one but Khujanga had seen it, however. And, like it or not, Strong Tongue was the familiar power; she was the tribe’s shaman, and they feared her. No, they would not storm her tent and kill her . . . would they?

  She had lived long enough among the Hsiung-nu to judge that the attempt was worth trying. Vughturoi, the sweet, treacherous thought crept into her mind, Vughturoi would expect her to defend herself as she had ever done.

  “The best man among you,” Silver Snow said calmly, “brings me Strong Tongue’s head.”

  It was no man but a boy who rose, his face alight. Ducking an awkward but profound bow at Silver Snow, he seized a spear and raced from the great tent to the place where, Silver Snow knew, Strong Tongue had ordered her own quarters pitched.

  She heard his. scream in the same moment that a flare of light, like oil poured on a fire at midnight, burst up with a roar and a stench of burning flesh. Two more boys leapt up, rage warring with terror on their faces, but Silver Snow held up her hand.

  “No,” she whispered. “I will hazard no more of you.”

  As she had in the Cold Palace, Silver Snow sat and waited as the night wore on, as the drum beats from Strong Tongue’s tent grew louder and more insistent. Chanting rose, then subsided, to rise more hoarsely. The Hsiung-nu watched, as motionless as Khujanga, but far less calm.

  And Silver Snow knelt there, deprived even of the comfort of Willow’s presence. At some time during the night, she had disappeared. At this very moment, was a fox with a limp pushing through the grasses toward the Hsiung-nu prince? Perhaps he might hear it, might reach casually for the spear or the bow of which he had such deadly mastery . . . “No!” Silver Snow wrapped arms about herself and rocked back and forth as if she keened in grief over her husband’s body. Sable rose and brought a fur-trimmed cloak. Summer night though it was, Silver Snow was grateful for the cloak’s warmth.

  She glanced up at the Hsiung-nu woman who had been first among her people to approach Silver Snow with warmth rather than deference and curiosity. Tonight, she might suffer for that loyalty. It all depended on who won a double race: a summons by magic and a mad ride back to the tents of the royal clan. Even though Tadiqan had ridden among the Fu Yu, he might well have been on his way back; and the herds that Vughturoi inspected ranged over vast areas of grassland.

  Darkness waned to gray, and all of the fires in the tents died. Gradually, the drumbeats and chants that had risen from Strong Tongue’s tent faded into silence. At dawn, Willow returned, walking very slowly as if her lame leg hurt even more than usual. With infinite care, she settled herself behind her mistress. When Silver Snow turned to greet her, she answered only with a sigh and a wan smile of gratitude for a proffered cushion.

  Dawn brightened into a clear morning. The sun as it climbed toward zenith shone almost white; the day would be hot. It might be, Silver Snow thought, as she knelt beside the rigid body of her dead lord, that neither prince would arrive in time to view his father’s body, which would not keep for long in the heat. Already the sunken features were discoloring; soon the body would swell. Silver Snow sniffed, but could smell nothing beyond ashes, sweat, and tension.

  She allowed her furred cloak to slip from her shoulders. Willow, as if grateful for a task that was easy to perform, folded it and laid it aside.

  A shadow blocked the sunlight at the entrance to the tent. Slowly, ponderously, Strong Tongue walked through the crowd of staring Hsiung-nu as if they did not exist, stopping only when she stood before the body of the shan-yu. A murmuring arose behind her, and the men and women in the tent appeared to divide as long stalks of grass bent in different courses before the high wind that heralds a vicious storm. Already some of the warriors eyed one another speculatively, wondering on whose side they would fight should Tadiqan and Vughturoi come to blows.

  Not deigning to look either at her late lord or at Silver Snow, Strong Tongue knelt too. Bound by a common anxiety, they waited. From time to time, water was brought, and they sipped it. Beyond that, there were no white robes, no hired mourners, no elaborate preparations, yet. The warriors gashed their faces, the women waited. The next shan-yu would give whatever orders would be needed.

  Hoofbeats rang out, and half the people in the tent surged to their feet. Silver Snow balled her hands into fists and drove her nails into her palms. The colors of the rugs and hangings spun and blurred, and the folds and billows of the tent seemed to heave up and down, threatening to send her toppling onto her face. Even Strong Tongue, despite that weathered skin of hers, turned gray with apprehension.

  But it was one of the boys who hurled himself from the back of his horse into the tent, where he flung himself down—with superb tact, Silver Snow could not help but observe—at a distance precisely between her and her enemy.

  “They come, great ladies!” he gasped, his voice cracking with the attempt to sound like a man, though his weapons and the open cuts on his face were his only signs yet of manhood.

  “They, child?” Silver Snow asked.

  “Which one comes, boy?” demanded Strong Tongue at the same moment.

  “Both princes, mighty queens.” The boy glanced from woman to woman, abased himself to both of them indiscriminately, and fled, evidently preferring the threat of actual war to proximity between two silently warring queens.

  “I shall greet the new shan-yu,” declared Strong Tongue, who surged to her feet as if she had not a doubt in the world that Tadiqan her son would arrive first.

  How can I bear to watch this race? Silver Snow demanded of herself.

  How do I dare not to? She answered herself a moment later, and thought hard of her father’s last battle with the Hsiung-nu. She too would face her fate without flinching, even if it was to fling herself upon the mercy of her sharp little blade. She rose, straightened a back that had gone stiff from a night and a day spent watching beside the dead shan-yu, and walked outside with conscious grace.

  Three riders, not two, raced toward the camp. From the east, rode Tadiqan,
bow strung at his back, his usual troop trying desperately to catch up to him. At the sight of her son, Strong Tongue stiffened. Her stern face seemed to catch the light of the sun, and she raised her spirit drum, patched, Silver Snow noted, with a strip of darker hide. Quickly she beat out an insistent, imperious rhythm on the drum, and the pace of Tadiqan’s horse quickened. Even from where she stood, Silver Snow could see how low the beast’s head drooped. It stumbled, but a fast, brutal move by its rider forced it to continue.

  Silver Snow glanced at Willow, who nodded and slipped away. A fox, or a number of foxes might frighten that troop of horsemen—or serve as easy, casual prey, should they be too slow in going to ground. Then she turned to look at the rider from the west. It was Vughturoi; had he been twice the distance away, even then Silver Snow thought that she would have recognized him. He was accompanied by only one rider, who lay, rather than sat, in the saddle, his arms flung about his mount’s shaggy neck lest he fall.

  “Brother,” whispered Sable from where she stood behind Silver Snow.

  Vughturoi was lighter than Tadiqan, less of a burden for his horse to bear; and the animal seemed to be fresher. Silver Snow’s eyes filled with tears, and she blinked to dispel them. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Tadiqan’s horse swerve, then stumble. With superb, brutal skill, the prince controlled it and forced it to a pace that was half gallop, half stagger. Again it swerved, as if to avoid something—a fox, perhaps?—in its path, and again it fell. This time, Tadiqan’s skill availed only to let him roll free of the falling horse. He came up running, a sport at which the Hsiung-nu, who were master horsemen, were totally unskilled.

  Silver Snow let out a laugh of relief.

  “Think you so, daughter?” Strong Tongue snapped at her. “My son may be no runner, but he is an archer unmatched among the Hsiung-nu.”