by Andre Norton
Indeed, Tadiqan had strung his bow, was reaching for an arrow; and Silver Snow remembered. Tadiqan had in his quiver some wondrous arrows that shrieked and whistled as they flew. That sound was the command for all of his men to draw and shoot at their master’s target. Should he aim at Vughturoi or his horse, the younger prince was doomed.
“Get down!” Silver Snow’s control broke, and she screamed that. Now it was Strong Tongue’s turn to laugh scornfully, then fall silent as she watched.
A whistle broke that silence, and Silver Snow pressed one hand to her mouth. With the other, she edged her dagger free of its sheath. A cheer rose from Vughturoi’s friends in the camp as their prince made his horse curvet sharply, missing the deadly flight of arrows that followed his half-brother’s shot. That dodge was a fortunate one, Silver Snow thought. How could he continue to evade arrows as swift and as lethally aimed? He could not, especially not at the pace that he was traveling. He must either dismount or hide; and then Tadiqan would reach the tents first.
Strong Tongue muttered something, and beat a new rhythm on her deadly little drum. The Hsiung-nu gasped in horror and fear, and Silver Snow followed their appalled gazes. A wall of flame, the fear of every grasslander, had sprung up between the camp and Prince Vughturoi. It danced and crackled; about it, the air seemed to be thicker, curdled from the heat of the blaze.
Vughturoi’s horse screamed and reared, panicked, as were all of its kind, by its nearness to fire.
“That fire will burn out of control, sweep across the plains, and wipe out the herds. Even the few beasts that will survive will starve,” Silver Snow shouted at Strong Tongue. “How can you doom the very people whom you want your son to rule?”
Strong Tongue turned to sneer at Silver Snow without ceasing the deadly, insistent rhythm of drumbeats. “Fool,” she said. “That is not real fire, nor will it burn out of my control. It will cease when a living creature touches it. Of course,” she added, “that creature will speedily cease to walk among the living; but we cannot be greedy, now, can we?”
Whatever creature touched that blaze would douse it, and Vughturoi rode in the lead. He would touch the flame and die! Silver Snow lifted up her long skirts and prepared to run down the slope toward the fire, but a fox with glossy fur and a slight limp ran between her and her chosen path, then took that path itself.
Willow, get back! At least Silver Snow preserved enough judgment not to shriek that, though, at the time, she thought that a shriek of rage and despair would assuage her better than a silver cup of icy water at high noon.
A deep, man’s voice echoed that cry: Basich, from his precarious seat on horseback. Even as he saw his lord gallop closer and closer to what appeared to be a wall of true fire, he flogged his horse into one last burst of energy that outstripped that of Prince Vughturoi’s flagging mount and cut across his path. Rather than ride him down, the prince swerved, and Basich drove his horse ever closer and closer toward the wall of fire.
His horse screamed and fought him as they neared the flame. Surely he would not ride the poor beast into the flames, Silver Snow hoped. At the last moment, when it looked as if man and beast would be consumed in the high wall of flames, Basich flung himself from his horse’s back into the fire.
He had time to scream once. The fire rose, then burnt down to nothing, leaving not even a path of charred grass to show where it had passed. His horse ran free, in a wide, wild circle across the plain.
Forsaking the stoic silence that was Hsiung-nu custom, Sable let out a wail of grief. Her knees buckled, and she fell.
“Quick, take her away!” commanded Silver Snow and was obeyed quickly, as queens are obeyed. There would be no marriage arranged now between Willow and Basich; no man to provide for a widowed sister’s children; and a warrior’s children left orphaned. I shall take them under my protection, thought Silver Snow, and knew that thought for one of hope.
In the next instant, she shuddered. What if, even now, Tadiqan shot one of those deadly, screaming arrows of his and struck his younger brother in the back? A shriek of greeting, almost indistinguishable from terror, rose, and Vughturoi’s own guard rode into sight, chasing after the master who had so far outstripped them. Let Tadiqan fire now, and, if he lived, he would rule only over a clan stripped of its warriors.
He cast his bow down and trudged, head lowered, toward the tents. Twice he almost fell as beasts erupted from hiding in the tall grass to nip at his legs, then flee before he could kick at them or draw weapon.
Up the incline on which the shan-yu’s great tent was pitched rode Vughturoi. At the sight of him, Silver Snow’s knees threatened to go unstrung, as had poor Sable’s, but she forced herself to keep her head high, though her long hair tumbled down her back and had not been combed for a day and a night.
She turned and walked back to her place beside the dead shan-yu. Let Vughturoi find her at his father’s side, as was fitting: Khujanga had been a great ruler and should not be left to lie unaccompanied. Her lips and hands were shaking, and her breath came too fast. She told herself that what she felt was gratitude at her delivery, either from death at her own hand or from degradation at Tadiqan’s more lustful ones.
A murmur of greeting, rather than the usual exuberance of the Hsiung-nu, and the thunder of hundreds of hoofbeats and footsteps heralded Vughturoi’s approach. Covered with dust and travel stains, he walked toward his father’s body, drew his knife, and slashed his cheeks in Hsiung-nu grief. Then he prostrated himself before Khujanga one last time.
When he rose, tears had partially washed away the blood that he had shed. Silver Snow had not known that Hsiung-nu could weep. His wearied eyes met Silver Snow’s briefly and seemed to warm at the sight of her. Immediately she flushed, then went cold. Once again the rugs and hangings seemed to melt into one another, a too-bright, almost-sickening blur of gaudy hues. She flung out a hand to save herself from falling.
“Tend to your lady,” Vughturoi commanded, and Silver Snow felt herself enfolded in a familiar, affectionate embrace: Willow! The maid helped her to rise, and steadied her. Silver Snow wanted only to sleep now, then, perhaps, to wash before she faced what she knew she must now see. Yet clamor outside the tent made her steel herself for what would come next.
“My brother, that laggard, has arrived,” Prince Vughturoi, now the shan-yu, observed. “Let him and his mother approach.”
He turned toward the shan-yu’s throne and saw the skull cup resting atop it. “Someone take that thing away and house it safely!” he commanded, and sat down in the seat that was now rightfully his.
When two of his guard hesitated, clearly afraid of what mischief Strong Tongue and her son might yet work, Vughturoi clapped his hands. “Bring them before us!” For the first time he spoke as befitted a ruler, and his warriors hastened to force a path down which Strong Tongue and her son could walk until they faced him.
“Well?” demanded Vughturoi.
Tadiqan flung up his chin, clearly prepared to fight to the death his younger brother’s claim upon his father’s power, until Strong Tongue held up a hand.
“What is it you would have?” she spoke with her old authority as shaman.
“Obedience,” said the shan-yu. He pointed to the carpet on which the shaman stood.
Whispers went up, whispers that Silver Snow could hear, urging him to dispatch his brother and his treacherous dam. In that moment, she too was sorely tempted to speak for Strong Tongue’s death.
“Let His Sacred Majesty think of how much trouble would be spared,” came one whisper, louder than most, from an elder warrior who had long served Khujanga.
“Aye,” muttered Vughturoi. “Yet we have no proof, and our brother’s warriors are too many to be angered or driven away, lest we lose half of our fighting force.”
Again he gestured at the carpets. “Down!” he commanded. “Or our command shall be what it should be, not what it must. To kneel before your shan-yu is a small price to pay for your lives!”
Once again Tad
iqan made as if to balk. Once he prostrated himself before his brother, the thing was done, inevitable: any rebellion thereafter would be impiety as well as treason. But Strong Tongue’s hand on his arm forced him first to kneel, then to go to his belly, just as the shaman did.
“Better by far to kill a snake than warm it at your hearth,” murmured Willow. “Come, Elder Sister, and let me care for you.”
Abruptly that suggestion sounded like the most wonderful thing that Silver Snow had ever heard. Even as Vughturoi gave orders for the hearthfires to be rekindled and funeral preparations to be put in hand for his father, she and her maid slipped from the great tent to her own place.
She had bathed, eaten sparingly, and waited, Willow attending her, combing the dust and snarls from her hair until it hung loose down her back like floss-silk. Then she had scented Silver Snow as if for her wedding, and wrapped her in delicate silks that were the hues of peach and apricot. The girl had ever been sparing of words, but tonight her mute patience cut Silver Snow as sharply as Vughturoi’s blade had slashed his face in mourning. Tactfully she sought some way of drawing confidences from her maid, and found none. Thus, she borrowed a tactic from the Hsiung-nu and spoke plainly.
“Sable grieves,” she said flatly. “I thought, earlier today, that the two of you might well have become sisters in truth, that I would have spoken with my lord . . .”
But now they both are dead, the old lord who wed me; the young one who might have welcomed you.
Willow shook her head with weary patience. “It was a dream, no more, like the fumes in a fourth cup of wine, Elder Sister. I allowed myself to dream: no more but that.”
“Why should it have been no more?” asked Silver Snow. “And why can it not still be, with ano—”
“Why can it not still be?” cried Willow, interrupting her mistress for the first time in all the years that they had been together. “Can you look at me, look at the leg that would have meant my death had your father not pitied me, and truly ask that?”
Silver Snow shut her eyes, shaking her head in sorrow. “I see only Willow, who is as my sister. And the Hsiung-nu go mounted. There is no lameness when one rides.”
“Elder Sister,” Willow spoke very softly but with utter sternness. “Do you truly think that I would risk bringing into the world a child as blighted as I myself? Do you truly think I could bear to see such a child cast out to die or used as I was? Being weak, I dreamed for a space; and I have paid. Let be.”
Silver Snow reached out, took her maid’s hand, and sat thus, silently, as if the two of them scouted by means only of their ears. From time to time she heard a shout of acclaim rise in the great tent. The shouting died away, the feasting with it as the Hsiung-nu sought their own tents, weary after the death-watch and the race of the princes to their father’s side. Still she waited, but Vughturoi did not come.
What would she do if he did not come to her? Nothing in her training had equipped her to seek him out boldly in his own quarters, to confront him with the boldness of Hsiung-nu women. No: she was a lady of Ch’in as well as a queen of the Hsiung-nu; as a lady of Ch’in, she would wait to be summoned or to be visited.
The light slanting into her tent waned, and then it was night. The energy that had sustained her began to fade, and she thought of seeking her bed. Stubbornly, however, she waited. After what seemed to be an eternal period of time, she smiled at a sudden remembrance. Perhaps she would not have to wait or seek out her new lord if he hesitated to claim what was his.
“Bring my lute,” Silver Snow ordered Willow. Putting aside her own melancholy, Willow rose quickly. Silver Snow smiled at the maid’s look of delighted, complicit craft.
How many years ago it seemed that she had mourned in disgrace during her exile to the Cold Palace and had written a song upon leaves that, cast upon the wind, brought her a friend and a new hope. Once again that song must serve. Smiling a little wistfully, Silver Snow plucked the strings of her lute and sang:
“How fast the water flows away!
Buried in the women’s quarters,
The days pass in idleness.
Red leaf, I order you—
Go find someone
In the world of men.”
Ah! There were the footsteps outside her tent, just as she had heard them almost every night of her long wedding journey to the domain of the Hsiung-nu. This night, however, they did not cease outside her tent, but came boldly into its entrance . . . and waited.
“Lady?” Vughturoi might be shan-yu now, but his voice questioned rather than demanded.
Silver Snow walked toward the entrance of the tent.
“This one,” she began, “begs the shan-yu to enter; His Sacred Majesty has no need to question where he may command.”
As Vughturoi entered the tent, she dropped into the prostration that was his due.
“No, lady!” he ordered. “You were queen before ever I was master here. Rise!”
Stubbornly, disobediently, Silver Snow kept her face pressed against the jewel-bright rugs of her domain, gifts from this man’s father, until she felt rough hands upon her shoulders, drawing her upright, standing her upon her feet once more.
“May this one offer you wine?” she murmured.
“Look at me, lady,” Vughturoi ordered.
Thus commanded, of course, she had no choice but to obey. She looked up, meeting his eyes, and felt that same shock of warmth, almost of homecoming that she had known—and suffered shame therefrom—once or twice before when she looked upon him.
“You,” he pointed at Willow. “Out!”
Willow limped out, turning to smile almost impudently at her mistress; and then Silver Snow was quite alone with the prince whom she had summoned to rule over the Hsiung-nu and to be her chosen lord.
“I was riding among our herds,” said the shan-yu, “when a fox yapped at my horse and would not flee. Such is not the nature of the fox kind. Yet I remembered that such a beast had helped us fight the white tiger, and I turned my path aside to join it. Shortly thereafter, I met Basich . . . my . . . my friend.” Vughturoi’s voice almost broke.
Before she knew it, Silver Snow held out her hands to him, offering a comfort that she had not realized that even a warrior lord of the Hsiung-nu might need. He dropped his hands from her shoulders to catch hers.
“He told me of my father’s death, and that you had . . . you had sent for me. So I came, obedient,” he added with a wry grin that made him wince in protest against the pain of his slashed face, “to the queen who brings peace to the Hsiung-nu. Once again you have done so.”
“I have done nothing,” said Silver Snow, “save my duty, I hope.”
He was looking at her, frankly admiring the way that the thin, pale silks clung in this heat to the delicate curves of her body. She shivered, sought for composure, but failed to achieve it. Had she had a heavy overgarment to catch up and throw about herself, even in this heat, she would have done so.
“You are all silence and obedience,” blurted the shan-yu, “and you look as if one gust of wind would carry you back to the Sky which, surely, must have created someone like you. Yet I have seen you confront an Emperor, rescue a lady, and hunt the white tiger. You do not appear to be strong: you bow; you obey; you bend everywhere . . . and nowhere at all. And you summoned me to your side.”
“The people,” said Silver Snow. “Your people, who are now mine . . . need a strong ruler.”
“Just now, too, you summoned me with your music as if it were a spell. But you would not speak to me before my father’s body, before my people. Lady, was there, could there be another reason why you called for me?” His words tripped over one another as if he hoped that her answer might be “yes.” His hands tightened, then released, careful of the fragility of the hands within his grasp.
This, Silver Snow knew, was the time for the pretty speeches about spring longings over which the concubines in Ch’ang-an had sighed and giggled. Those speeches seemed to belong to a vanished, long-ago world; she
was as incapable of making them as she was of breaking a wild horse. Silently she turned and went to the chest in which, months ago, she had hidden the scent bag that she had worked in silks and fine, soft sable pelts. She walked back over toward Vughturoi, offering him the bag as it rested across her outstretched palms.
He clasped it and the hands that held it in his own scarred fingers. “Remember, I saw such tokens in Ch’ang-an,” he told her.
She cast down her eyes and waited.
“Basich,” Vughturoi said suddenly, with what Silver Snow privately thought was supreme irrelevance. “He leaves his sister with no protector, his children and hers with no provider. I shall take Sable into my tents as a lesser wife.”
His words, Silver Snow decided, were not irrelevant after all; but they were supremely unwelcome.
She must have grimaced in distaste because laughter rumbled in Vughturoi’s voice. “Sable will wait, if she wants a son from me, though. For I shall put no other woman before my queen, who shall ever be my chief wife and bear my eldest son. Do you understand me, lady?”
She nodded, trembling as if with cold, though she felt most wonderfully warmed and comforted. Vughturoi’s eager gaze no longer seemed so frightening. Though it held a knowledge she lacked, she knew that that would not be for long.
“Then say it!” he commanded.
Why did he not simply embrace her and have done with it? Silver Snow thought. The answer was not as simple: though his own people’s law gave him the right to claim her, he chose to respect her, to wait until she chose to yield. He would not want to wait too long, she sensed. Yet it was hard, hard, to know how to give herself.
For a long moment she stared at Vughturoi. Certainly he was not Han, nor was he simply Hsiung-nu: he was himself. That thought carried her over the moment of her surrender.
Silver Snow smiled. “I think,” she spoke carefully, considering every word, “that we have always understood one another reasonably well.”
Vughturoi stepped forward and raised a hand to touch her chin, turning her face up to look into it. He was grieved, wearier by far than she, Silver Snow realized suddenly. She could give him the assurance that, clearly, he sought from her, and let him rest in comfort, or she could continue to play the modest, die-away games of the ladies of Ch’ang-an: she, who had forced herself to courage by remembering that she was queen of the Hsiung-nu.
