by Zoe Marriott
“If you like,” I said, my smile coming a little more naturally as I straightened to my full height.
“Can … can Da Xiong come, too?” She leaned in to whisper. “He was more frightened than me.”
I blinked, looked around, and saw another pair of bright, dark eyes – the twin of our mother’s and my own – peering around the corner at me. He startled as our gazes met, making as if to dart back out of sight. At ten, he was old enough to understand exactly what “the big noise” was. And, if I knew him, perceptive enough to be afraid of exactly the same thing I was.
I reached out a hand towards him. “Come out then, Da Xiong Mao.”
Da Xiong emerged and ran forward, though he stopped short of grasping my other hand. His dimple winked shyly. “I’m not a panda,” he told me seriously. “I’m a boy.”
I silently congratulated myself on the use of the old nickname.
“Oh? Let me check.” He didn’t attempt to dodge when I prodded at his round cheek, squinting at him in feigned concentration. The dimple deepened when I finally shook my head and pronounced: “No. Definitely panda.”
Xiao Xia giggled.
The deep, rattling call of the war horn sounded once more, and both the children flinched.
“Come along. Don’t step on my hems,” I scolded, raising my voice above the noise as I led them quickly back towards the weaving room. “Watch where you put your feet. Now, what has Ai Bo been teaching you today?”
“Songs!” Xiao Xia said eagerly. “Would you like to hear?”
“Ah – not just now, dear one! I’m sure Mother would love to hear. Later.” Xiao Xia had a face as delicate and lovely as a hummingbird’s wing, and a voice as shrill and discordant as a wailing cat. Ai Bo would have done much better to focus on teaching my sister to play a dizi flute so that no one asked her to sing, ever. “And what about you, Da Xiong Mao?”
“Maps,” he said, voice soft. “Geography, terrain, provinces and territories, names of rivers … things I’ll need to know to be a soldier. When I’m old enough.”
I swallowed hard. “You must tell Father about that when he returns.”
“Where did Father go?” Xiao Xia asked. “He never goes anywhere!”
“Well, today he went to the town square.” I released Xiao Xia’s hand and pushed back the screen of the weaving room, forestalling any further questions.
“Look who I found,” I said brightly, nudging my sister in ahead of me and squeezing Da Xiong’s shoulder before releasing him. “Visitors for us, Mother. Aren’t we lucky? Ai Bo seems to have let them go early today. I can’t think why.”
“Oh! How … nice. You must have worked very hard for your teacher to release you so quickly! I shall talk to her later.” Mother cast me a withering look. She knew that Ai Bo would be in the servants’ quarters gossiping, half in glee and half in terror, about the latest stories of the rogue general’s terrible deeds – just as Mother knew that my abandonment of her had not been motivated by duty to my siblings. Her hand, as she reached out to draw Da Xiong to her, was shaking.
I couldn’t leave her again. I would have to wait with them. This time I managed to hold my sigh behind my teeth.
We sat. We waited. Xiao Xia sang for us, and made a tangled mess of my threads. Da Xiong explained in a soft, grave voice the lessons he was learning. The war horn did not ring out again.
But Father did not return.
The time when Mother would normally have gone bustling away to chivvy the servants about the evening meal came and went. None of us stirred. Even Xiao Xia didn’t complain about being hungry: the nervous atmosphere taking its toll upon her. Night was beginning to draw in by the time we heard the familiar steps – uneven, with the faint drag on the left – carrying Father slowly but unhesitatingly to the weaving room.
“Father!” Xiao Xia crowed with uncomplicated relief as he pushed back the screen. “You’re back at last!”
I rose slowly to my feet. Across the room, Mother did the same. My gaze alighted upon Father’s worn, handsome face, with its long, noble bones and grey streaked beard – upon the expression of grave solemnity that Xiao Xia’s delightful enthusiasm would usually have lightened – and then his hands. One clasped the smooth jade head of his ebony walking stick, as it always did. The other … the other…
“You have the scroll,” Da Xiong said blankly. “The red-sealed scroll. They called you up.”
“Yes, my son,” Father said. The words were kind but very, very tired. “It is my honour to serve.”
Blinking rapidly, I looked into his face again. But Father’s sad, grey-brown eyes were not on Da Xiong or on me. They were focused beyond us, in the now dim weaving room. On Mother.
Behind me I heard the tiniest possible sound, so quiet that it was almost inaudible, so quiet that it was impossible to know what it had been – perhaps a soft intake of breath, or a gasp of pain. It was enough. I whipped around, the silken layers of my gown billowing around me like the sails of a ship, and reached out just in time to catch Mother before she fainted.
“You are sure you are well enough to be up?” Father asked gently as Mother knelt opposite him at the end of the low dining table. The servants glided silently around us, casting long, flickering shadows on the red silk walls, arranging platters of steamed rice, stewed meat and stir-fried greens, soft steamed buns and soup. “I can have the maid bring you a tray in your room.”
“Of course! I am not ill – it was only standing up so suddenly,” she said, as bright as shards of broken glass. I could almost see their glint in the soft lantern-light. The servants finished laying the table and departed, the last one drawing the screen door shut behind him with a soft click.
My heart was laden in my chest. She isn’t going to tell him.
Mother had not confided in me. She hadn’t told anyone. But though I may not understand my mother, or she me, I did know her. The fearful hope I glimpsed on her face was as obvious to me as a declaration, even if I had not observed the telltale signs of sickness in the mornings, the slight puffiness in her face, the way she had been eating pickled plums by the jar…
Looking conscious of the awkward pause, she reached for her cup. “I should have been more careful. Leaping around that way was foolish. A woman of my years knows better—” She cut herself off with a tiny choke.
Yes, I knew her, and I knew the thoughts behind that expression.
I can do it this time. That was what she was thinking. I can do it. No longer would the townsmen look at my father with confusion and pity, wondering why he refused to take a second, more fruitful wife. She knew he would never do it while she lived, that he would view it as a betrayal even if no one else judged it so. He had never blamed her. But their eyes did. Only one boy in the house! Only one boy for the war hero! The waste of it!
She had never once said it to me, but I had seen her think it many times: You should have been a son. Why couldn’t you have been a son?
“I am glad that you are well,” Father said. “Now, what of you children? You are all very quiet today. What have you been up to?” His cheer was less brittle than Mother’s, but no less feigned.
He wasn’t going to say anything either. We would sit here and eat, and pretend everything was normal. That the red-sealed scroll was not tucked neatly into his belt pouch. That he had not just received the equivalent of a death sentence from the army.
The Leopard’s men did not fight with honour. They did not take prisoners or negotiate. They were butchers, and if my father went to fight them he would die. That was reality.
I heard the dry swallowing noise as Da Xiong, beside me, visibly struggled to speak, then shook his head, bowing his shoulders over his bowl. Xiao Xia frowned at him, finished chewing a dumpling, and said, “What was that big noise today, Father? Zhilan said you were going to a meeting! Who with?”
“Xiao Xia—” Mother began.
“Is that bad Leopard man coming here? I think you should fight him. Then he would run away.” My little sis
ter nodded wisely and slurped her soup.
“That’s enough,” Mother said, too late.
Xiao Xia’s face crumpled in confusion. “Why—”
Da Xiong finally looked up. “I’m sorry, Father.”
“For what?” Father asked calmly. His refusal to comprehend was like a stone wall, and Da Xiong quailed before its blankness. His head bowed further and he said no more, although the words were splattered before us for all to see. I’m sorry I’m not big enough. I’m sorry I’m not old enough. I’m sorry I can’t take your place.
And Da Xiong didn’t know the worst thing. He didn’t know what Mother might do if this pregnancy ended, like so many others, in miscarriage, or a heartbreaking stillbirth. What she might do if she failed for the last time and Father was … gone.
She had nearly done it once before.
The doctors said she had not been in her right mind, that the loss of two late-term pregnancies within a year had unbalanced her humours and temporarily stolen her reason. But I would never forget the sight of her face, calm and determined, hair and clothes perfectly neat, as my panicked father wrestled the cup of poison from her hand.
It had taken all his strength to do it.
“Father,” I said, making sure that my voice was utterly calm, that my face was composed and my gaze even. “I realize that you do not know the new emperor well—”
“That unnatural woman,” Mother muttered, apparently from habit. She kept her voice just low enough that Father could pretend not to hear it, just as he always did.
I cleared my throat and went on, hands clenching into an icy knot under the table. “But surely your exceptional service under her husband would win you some recognition. If you were to write to her, or visit court perhaps, and explain your state of health – I have heard of exemptions being granted in some cases. Just for a few years. Until Da Xiong is old enough to carry the family honour.”
My father gave me a long, serious look. My lead-weight heart seemed to plummet through my ribs to the pit of my stomach. “Drink your soup.”
The rebuff was kind, but unmistakable. Da Xiong’s small hand found mine under the table and squeezed for an instant before it darted away again.
We sat. We ate. We did not talk any more.
After dinner we scattered like dry seeds in an autumn wind. My father went to his study. I followed him there.
“I am tired tonight, daughter. I do not wish to talk.” He sighed, leaning heavily on his walking stick, already about to turn away.
I interrupted using the only weapon I had. “Mother is with child again.”
He rocked back as if from a blow, desperate sadness, anxiety and the faintest hint of joy flickering across his face. For a moment, I thought he would fall. Then his shoulders sagged, and he drew one hand across his eyes.
The quiet drew out between us, trembling with unsaid things.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said at last.
I had never heard his voice so dull. It was as if he were already defeated. I couldn’t bear it. “Won’t you at least write to the emperor?” I pleaded.
He took his hand from his face. “I spoke to the censor today. The war is going badly – they are desperate for men. No exemptions will be granted.”
No, it can’t be. I can’t let it be. Ancestors help me, I should have been a son…
“Father … Father, listen. Any one of us would be willing to surrender our life for the good of the empire. That is our privilege and our honour.” I tried to keep my voice level, tried to express myself with logic and intelligence instead of emotion. Yet as the words poured forth, I could feel tears welling in my eyes and my hands reached out to beseech him. “But if you go, and – and something happens. To you. Or to the baby. You know what Mother will try to do. What will happen to the House of Hua then? To our family? If both of you are gone? Da Xiong is not old enough to be the head of our household! And for what? What good will it do the emperor? Your courage burns brighter than anything, but your lungs are ruined and your leg is weak. You are vital to us, vital to Mother and Xiao Xia and Da Xiong – but to the army you … you would only be a burden.”
His sagging shoulders straightened until he looked into my eyes. His face had become still and stern, deep lines carving out a mask that showed no emotion. “Zhilan. Your intentions are good, but you seek the impossible: a way out. There is no way out. Not with honour. The Leopard is a perversion of everything we hold dear and he must be stopped. Someone must fight for the empire, someone must fight for the House of Hua. This is the world. What is, is.”
“I should have been a son…” The words slipped out, and I felt myself blanch.
For the first time since he had returned to the house with the red-sealed scroll, a faint smile moved his pale lips. “You would have made me very proud, I think.” The smile died. “I will begin preparing to leave tomorrow. Do not increase my burdens by interfering, my daughter. This is not women’s business.”
I let myself be pushed, tenderly yet inexorably, from the room. The soft sound of the door closing made me flinch.
Not women’s business.
I should have been a son.
Someone must fight for the House of Hua.
A son…
Four
any things changed after the night the assassins came. My relationship with my mother never quite recovered from what she had seen me do. And my father’s reputation, already a fearsome thing, became the kind of story that young men whisper around a campfire at night to give themselves bravery.
Hua Zhou, the Wild Tiger, who retired a hero and killed six assassins – or perhaps it was ten, or even twenty – single-handedly to protect his home.
Hua Zhou, the greatest general the Red Empire ever had, the greatest swordsman ever to walk from the field of battle alive.
Hua Zhou, the living legend.
It was after the night of assassins that the boys began to come. Throughout the long dry summers of my childhood, every trade caravan brought at least one challenger for my father.
Some were brash and cocky, seeking to make their own names by throwing my father’s legacy down. Others were reverent and wished to become his students. Many had the names of great houses. A few had no name at all.
But despite their many differences, all the boys had two things in common…
I thought of that now, as I crept through the darkened house. My sleeping robe drifted around my ankles and wrists like white mist as I walked soundlessly past my father’s bedchamber and his study to the furthest room of the men’s wing. I hesitated outside for one moment, fighting the instincts that cried out at me to turn back. Then I slid open the dark, carved wood screen and stepped over the threshold, before closing myself within.
Merely by standing there, I was breaking my father’s sternest and most long-standing prohibition for me. For this room, still and dim and seemingly empty, the walls lined with cedar cabinets, the floor with simple woven rush mats, was the wu kwan – the place where Father stored all his weapons and his armour and uniforms from his army days. Where he had trained me in wushu and banner-breaking since I was seven.
From the first day of those lessons, I had been forbidden to enter this room or touch anything in it without his presence and permission. Tonight, I entered with every intention of touching Father’s things. In fact, I was going to steal them.
I pressed one hand flat over my heart and willed its rapid pace to slow, counting my breaths. He who is victorious knows when to fight, I reminded myself, quoting from the books on warfare that Father had let me read. The quality of swift decision in a soldier is like the swoop of a falcon that allows it to capture its prey.
There was no turning back.
The first thing all the challengers had in common was that none stood a chance of defeating my father in battle. From various hiding places around the compound, I would press my eye to a crack in the window screen or door, listening out warily for the footsteps of my mother, and stare, shivering, a
t my father’s face in these moments. I hardly knew if what I felt was fear or excitement.
It never took him more than a few movements to disarm any of his challengers. Sometimes, with the best, he would draw them out, allowing them to attempt some of their favourite tricks. But, usually before my count had reached a full minute, the hopeful duellists would see their sword go flying and feel Father’s blade pressed to a vital point on their body while they sprawled, dazed, on the gravel.
I got into the habit of assessing them. Their weaknesses, their flaws, their failings.
This one was not strong enough for the sword he wielded. This one favoured his left leg – an old injury. This one was too sure of himself, and this one too tentative. After a while I could guess, almost as soon as they began to move, how they would fail…
Swiftly, I stripped off the light, gauzy fabric of my robe and bundled it into the back of one of the cabinets where it would not be seen. Tugging harshly in my haste and causing tears to spring to my eyes, I pulled my hair from its long sleeping plait – the tip of which reached past my waist – and instead coiled it tightly into a mannish topknot. Securing the hair with two long bronze pins and a strip of rawhide from a ceramic pin dish on the shelf of the closet, I inspected myself in the round, polished bronze mirror that stood there for the purpose. The unaccustomed style did make me look more masculine, my face more angular and less soft. That would help with my mask of illusion later.
I lingered over the reflection for a moment, and then another, studying the blurred lines intently. A shiver of something, something cold and hot at the same time – fear? Delight? – made the skin on my back prickle with gooseflesh.
Tearing my eyes away from the mirror, I opened another cabinet and drew forth breeches of soft, supple leather and a tunic of heavy undyed cotton, and pulled them on. Originally they had been Father’s. He had ordered a confused servant to alter them years ago – to fit me, for training. It hadn’t required much: he had a slight, whipcord frame, while I was tall and broad for a girl, taking after my well-built mother. The garments were always kept here, hanging next to Father’s things, and so, even when freshly laundered, they always smelled of him.
