Once Upon A Time (7) Wild Orchid

by Cameron Dokey

  And then, without warning, the earth gave a great crack beneath my feet and I, too, was tumbling down. My last thought, before the world turned black, was that even if I would be crushed myself, as least I had helped to crush the enemies of China.

  SEVENTEEN

  I returned to myself slowly, as if trudging uphill through a long and narrow tunnel. It was dimly lit, yet not entirely dark, because it seemed to me that I saw faces of companions I had known and loved, passing in and out of focus as I walked.

  I saw General Yuwen’s face most often. Next came an ancient, wrinkled face I did not recognize. And every once in a while, when the tunnel seemed most steep and endless, when it seemed to me I could not take another step, I thought I saw the face of Prince Jian. He gazed down at me with an expression I could not read save for sorrow in his eyes.

  Once I thought I opened my eyes to see him sitting beside me, head bowed down, cradling in his hands the dragonfly medallion he had given me the night before the battle with the Huns. Another time I felt the medallion against my skin once more, but the tight hold of Prince Jian’s hand on mine.

  And finally there came a series of days when the tunnel proved too dark and steep to travel at all. It was then that I was seized by a great fire in all my limbs, when my ears grew deaf and my eyes grew blind. And in those days I could not even wonder whether my journey had, at last, reached its end. I could form no questions, for I was lost, even to myself.

  When I opened my eyes at last, it was to light that was the color of a pearl, a color that I recognized, and I knew I had awakened just before dawn. For several moments I lay absolutely still, searching for some clue to my surroundings, staring upward at once. I was in my own tent, the one I had shared with Li Po. I was lying on the pallet that had once been my bed. My body felt…unfamiliar. Light as a seedpod spinning through the air, heavy as a stone, all at the same time.

  I shifted, and felt pain shoot through my shoulder. I have been injured, I thought.

  And at this the memories came flooding back. Memories of blood and pain, the screams of men and horses. I made a sound of protest, and in an instant Prince Jian was there, kneeling beside me. He took my hands in one of his and pressed his other hand against my brow.

  “Your skin is cool to the touch,” he said. “Praise all the gods, your fever has broken.” His eyes roamed over me, his expression unreadable.

  “I believe that you will live, Little Archer.” I tried to speak but managed only a croak because my mouth and throat were parched. As if he understood, Prince Jian released me, stepped away briefly, and then returned with a cup of cool water. He eased me upright, helping me to drink. I could take no more than a little, for in all my thirst I was weak and clumsy. Water dribbled down my chin and down onto my neck.

  “Li Po,” I managed to get out.

  Prince Jian laid me back down. “Perhaps it would be better to wait…,” he began.

  “No,” I said. “No, tell me.”

  His eyes steady on mine, Prince Jian shook his head, and I knew the thing I feared had come to pass.

  “I am sorry. I am told her died bravely,” the prince said.

  I nodded, blinking against the tears that filled my eyes. “He took down the standard. We were victorious?”

  “Yes, we were victorious,” Prince Jian replied. He fell silent, as if deciding what to say next.

  He has grown older, I thought. There were lines around his mouth I didn’t recognize, and his face looked pale and drawn. His shoulders, though still straight, now looked as though they carried some impossibly heavy burden.

  “But the archers who fought beside you say that it was you who made our victory possible,” the prince finally said. “They say you killed the Hun leader with a single shot. Is this so?”

  “It is,” I said, my voice a little stronger now. “But it was Li Po who made it possible. When the standard went down, the Hun leader turned his head toward me. It was…” I paused and took a breath. “It was the shot I missed that day when we practiced at targets.”

  “I see,” Prince Jian said. “This bears out what I was told.” His mouth twisted into a strange smile. “It would seem you are now a great hero, Little Archer.”

  He knows, I thought. He knows that I’m a girl and not a boy.

  I had no idea how long I had been lying there, but I must have been tended by a physician. My true gender would have been discovered at once.

  And now, for the first time, I felt my courage falter. I could not imagine how this prince, who had shared the innermost workings of his heart with me, could forgive the fact that I had kept something so important as my true identity from him.

  “Highness,” I said. “I –”

  Prince Jian stood up. “I will bring General Yuwen to you,” he said, speaking over my words. “He has been concerned about your welfare, spending many hours beside you. He will wish to know you are once more yourself.”

  At his choice of phrase I winced, for I had not truly been myself before. The difference was that now we both knew it.

  He will never forgive me, I thought.

  More than anything else in the world, I longed to call Prince Jian back, to explain all the reasons for what I had done. But I did not. I had betrayed his trust. And where there is no trust, it does no good to explain.

  ‘Thank you,” I said finally. “I would like to see General Yuwen to thank him for all his care.”

  “I will go, then,” said Prince Jian. He moved to the tent flap, lifted a hand to push it back, and then paused.

  “I am sorry for the loss of your friend,” he said. Then he stepped through the opening and was gone.

  General Yuwen came in several moments later. He strode at once to where I lay and knelt down beside me. Gently he took my hand in his.

  “Mulan,” he said simply. “My little hero of China.” At the sound of my true name the floodgates opened. I did not behave like a hero of China, brave at all costs. Instead I threw my good arm around General Yuwen as I would have liked to with my own father, burying my face in the crook of his neck, and I wept like a child for everything I had lost.

  It was from General Yuwen that I learned the full story of the events of that day, and its aftermath. Now that my fever had broken, I began to make a speedy recovery. It was true that I was covered from head to feet in scrapes and cuts, in bruises that would have made Min Xian hiss like a steam kettle in sympathy. My right arm was in a sling. In my tumble down the mountain I had broken my collarbone. I had been so buried in rubble that it was a miracle I didn’t have more broken bones. It was Prince Jian who had found me.

  By the time I had made the war horn cry, a relief force had already been sent on its way to provide reinforcements. The messengers Li Po and I had sent had reached Prince Jian safely. The prince himself had led the relief force, an honor that, as the eldest, Prince Ying could have claimed as his own. But he had been gracious, acknowledging his youngest brother’s wisdom in insisting that the second, smaller pass be protected – even over the objections of his brothers and their councilors.

  “Never have I seen anyone fight as Prince Jian did that day,” General Yuwen confided one night.

  I was now well enough to be up for long periods of time. The general and I were sitting outside the tent before the bright blaze of a campfire. General Yuwen often came to spend his evenings with me, and he was not alone. Word that Gong-shi – the young archer whose shot had helped to save all of China – was in face a girl had spread quickly through the camp. Many of the soldiers came to pay their respects, but also, I suspected, to relieve their curiosity. Only Prince Jian stayed away. I had not seen him since the day I first awakened.

  “The prince was like a tiger,” General Yuwen continued now.

  “When the battle was over and we began to take stock of our wounded…When Li Po’s body had been discovered but you could not be found…”

  The general broke off, shaking his head. “Never have I seen anyone more determined,” he went on. “On
e of the archers who had fought beside you was brought before him to explain what he thought had befallen you. It was long after nightfall. Prince Jian had had no rest and little food. Still he took a torch and went to search for you himself. He would not rest until he found you, he said.”

  “And after all that, I turned out to be a girl,” I said quietly.

  “Not just any girl,” General Yuwen said. “Hua Wei’s own daughter. Like your father before you, you are a hero, Mulan.”

  “You called me that before,” I said. “But I don’t feel very much like one, and I never set out to win that title.”

  “Perhaps that’s why it fits you so well,” the general answered quietly. “You thought not of yourself, of your own glory, but of China.

  The emperor is eager to meet you. He has even sent for your father.” Though winter was almost upon us, the emperor wished to celebrate China’s great victory over her ancient enemy not in the capital but here, in the mountains where the battle had been fought.

  He was already on his way, with a great cavalcade of retainers. And my father was to be among them.

  “So he is forgiven, then,” I said.

  “It would appear so,” General Yuwen replied. “But, then, he was right after all. The Huns did present a danger, as long as the son of their former leader was alive. Now that he is dead, the Huns have no one to lead them the next in line is an infant. It will be many years before he is grown.

  “But the arrow that turned the tide in China’s favor was fired by none other than Hua Wei’s own child. It is your actions that have restored your father to favor.”

  “Even though I’m a girl?” I said.

  General Yuwen smiled.

  “And Prince Jian?” I asked. “Can I win back his favor by my actions, do you think?”

  “Ah, Mulan,” General Yuwen exhaled my name on a sigh. “There I think you must be patient. Give him time.”

  “I don’t think there’s enough of it,” I said simply. “I hear what the men say around the fires at night. The Son of Heaven intends to make Prince Jian his heir, passing over Ying and Guang. A prince and a general’s daughter might have found a way to bridge the gap between them, assuming I might be forgiven in the first place, but now…” My voice trailed off. “Even if I am patient for the rest of my life, I think the gulf between us will be too great to cross.” General Yuwen remained silent. In spite of the warmth of the fire, I shivered, for I discovered that I was cold. And it seemed I might never be warm again, because this cold came not from the air around me but from the depths of my own heart.

  I want to go home, I thought. I longed for the familiar branches of the plum tree, Min Xian’s face. Most of all I longed for Li Po. But even when I returned, nothing would be quite the same. Li Po was gone, and the Mulan who would return was not a child anymore.

  In the weeks since I had made the decision to leave my father’s house, I had grown up. And I had learned that not every battle can be fought by firing an arrow from a bow. But I would have to face whatever new challenged came my way as bravely as I had faced the Huns. I could not wallow in self-pity, thinking about what might have been. I had to do my duty. It was the only way to stay true to myself.

  I wonder if this is how Jian feels about the possibility of becoming emperor, I thought. Despite the rift between us, I believed I still understood what was in his heart, because it was just like mine.

  And what Prince Jian’s heart wanted was to run free, to command no other than itself. But like my own heart would, Prince Jian’s would accept his responsibilities. He would do his duty with his head held high. He would bring himself and his family honor.

  I must learn to do the same, I thought.

  I had to cease to mourn what could never be and learn to make the most of what was possible. And I would begin by trying to mend the hurts of the past.

  Asking General Yuwen to bring me paper, brush, and ink, I sat up late, composing a letter of sympathy to Li Po’s mother.

  EIGHTEEN

  The very next morning the outriders appeared, giving us warning that the Son of Heaven would soon arrive. A great space had been prepared in the middle of the camp for his tent, with those of the princes flanking it on the left side, the side of the heart.

  As soon as word reached him of his father’s approach, Prince Ying sent soldiers to line the roadway, so many that they stood six deep. Not only would this give many men who fought bravely the chance to see the emperor, it meant that the Son of Heaven would be welcomed by those who had fought for China’s cause.

  The minor court officials appeared first, followed by the members of the emperor’s own household. The silk of their elaborate robes seemed to dazzle my eyes.

  “There are so many of them,” I murmured to General Yuwen.

  He smiled. “That is not the half of them,” he replied. “Only those most suited to travel. The rest stayed behind in Chang’an.”

  “No wonder my father found it quiet in the country,” I said.

  “Look!” General Yuwen said, pointing. “The Son of Heaven arrives!”

  There was a flash of gold, like sunlight glancing off a mirror, and suddenly I could see the emperor himself. His horse was the color of sable. The Son of Heaven’s dark cloak spread across the horse’s back.

  Though lined with fur to protect him from the cold, it was also embellished with the figure of a five-clawed dragon embroidered in gold thread. The embroidery was so thick, the stitches so fine, that as the cloak shifted in the wind it seemed as if the dragon would leap from the emperor’s back and take to the sky.

  Straight to the center of camp the Son of Heaven rode, to where the princes stood in front of his tent to welcome him. As he approached, all those assembled knelt to do him honor. I had practiced kneeling and then standing up again, in the privacy of my tent. It’s hard to kneel with only one arm for balance. The last thing I wanted was to humiliate myself and bring dishonor to my family by falling on my face as I paid homage to the Son of Heaven.

  The emperor brought his horse to a halt.

  “My sons, I come to celebrate our great victory,” he said.

  “Father,” Prince Ying replied. “You are most welcome.”

  “I give thanks for your safety,” the emperor went on, “as I give thanks for the safety of China. Rise now that you may look into my face and see how much I love and honor you.”

  At their father’s instruction the princes stood, even as the emperor dismounted. He embraced each in turn.

  “Where is the archer?” the emperor inquired. “Let me see Hua Wei’s child.”

  I felt my heart give a great leap into my throat.

  “There, Father,” Prince Jian said. “Beside General Yuwen.”

  “Rise and come forward, child.”

  I did as the emperor commanded, a simple act that required every bit as much courage as facing down the Huns. Slowly I walked forward until I stood before the Son of Heaven.

  “Tell me your name Little Archer,” he commanded, though his voice was not unkind.

  “If it pleases Your Majesty,” I said, astonished to hear my voice come out calm and steady. “I am Hua Mulan.”

  “I recognize your father’s determination in your face,” the emperor said.

  “Majesty, you honor me to say so,” I replied.

  “Hear me now, all of you,” the Son of Heaven cried in a great voice. “Once, long ago, in return for a great service I offered to grant Hua Wei the first wish of his heart. Now I offer the same gift to his daughter. For she has given me what I wished for most: the safety and security of China.”

  A great cheer went up from the soldiers. I stood, frozen in shock. The though that the emperor might offer me such an honor had never even occurred.

  What was the first wish of my heart?

  Like my father, could I wish for love?

  No, Mulan, I realized. You cannot. Not because I did not love, but because until this moment I had not recognized that love for what it truly was.


  My father had spoken his wish, knowing he loved and was loved in return. But I was not so fortunate.

  I cannot wish for love, I thought. But I can wish because of it.

  Prince Jian had given me the gift of courage when I had needed it most. Perhaps now I could give him something he would value just as much.

  “Speak, Mulan,” the Son of Heaven urged. “Tell me what I may grant you to show my gratitude.”