by Zoe Marriott
Maybe I should just find the gourd of poisoned wine and take it with me to show Diao. Surely the surgeons would be able to test it and prove my story – and that way no one could drink it before I could convince someone, anyone, to believe in Lu’s perfidy.
Yes, that was what I would do.
I sprang towards the tall wine cabinet and flung open the doors, only to be confronted with over a dozen gourds and bottles. Which was the right one? This? Or … this?
I was so busy panicking that I didn’t hear anything – not approaching footsteps, not the rustle of tent fabric – until the sharp intake of breath brought my head around.
The Young General stood frozen mid-step, halfway inside the entrance of the tent. He was fully armoured, his helm under one arm. On his right and just behind him was Commander Diao. They stared at me. The silence rumbled like the quiet before a lightning strike, while Diao’s face slowly darkened to a thunderous purple, hand tightening on his sword hilt.
“Hua Zhi?” General Wu said, in tones of disbelief.
“Sirs,” I croaked. “I promise I can explain.”
Thirteen
he stockade was really more of a glorified barn. It was most often used to house the horses and pack animals of army supply caravans, and one end of the large, draughty space was stuffed with bales of feed, barrels, coiled ropes, extra harnesses and other spare pieces of equipment.
But the six wooden cells which occupied the other end were sturdy and practical.
I was the only occupant.
Rain battered the wooden shingle roof. It was leaking on to the rest of the stockade, but the cells had their own low roofs, probably to keep prisoners from trying to climb out, and mine seemed waterproof for now. Not that it mattered. The heavens had opened as I was being dragged across the camp, and I was soaked by the time they flung me into the cell. The downpour had been warm, but after being stuck here in my heavy, sodden clothes for nearly two hours, I had begun to shiver. My muscles had tightened up and my bones were stiff and aching. I had worked through three sets of qigong exercises. Each one warmed me and boosted my qi levels for a time, but I was too tired and thirsty now to keep it up any longer. I had no idea how long I was going to be waiting here.
I sat as my father had taught me. Back straight, legs folded neatly, hands resting upon my knees with palms upward. I breathed deeply and slowly, and reminded myself that the damp, unpleasant feeling of shivers crawling over my skin was a mere inconvenience – a trick played on my mind by my feeble flesh – and if I could do nothing about it then it must be ignored.
I needed my mind to attend fully to more important matters.
No charges had been levelled against me yet. I wasn’t sure if I was here because they thought I’d been trying to steal, or if they suspected me of being a traitor. Either way I was in huge trouble. But worst of all was that they hadn’t let me speak. That poisoned wine was still in what turned out to be the Young General’s tent, lurking in the cabinet, waiting to be drunk. Just as Lu was lurking somewhere out there, no doubt laughing into his sleeve at my arrest and waiting to betray and murder us all in the Leopard’s name.
I had to get someone to listen. If Diao or Sigong came through that door to interrogate me, I had to find the right words to make them believe my story, that we were all in danger.
If Lu was the one who came through the door … I’d most likely be dead before anyone realized I was telling the truth.
I eyed the crude lock on the cell door. Among my other martial lessons, my father had taught me a peculiar skill he had some pride in: lock-picking. I was no genius at it, but a simple latch lock like this one wouldn’t require any finesse, and I had three good iron pins holding my hair in its topknot under the rawhide wrapping.
But breaking out wasn’t going to help my case. If I escaped, I’d be labelled as a traitor and deserter for sure. And Lu would be free to keep plotting until it was too late. So I had to stay here obediently and wait. Wait.
I took another deep, slow breath, feeling my ribs expand. Held it. Gently released it through my chapped lips, tensing my stomach muscles to properly empty my lungs.
If I got out of this with my skin intact, Yang Jie was going to kill me.
If I didn’t get out with my skin intact…
I tried to imagine myself maintaining a good enough illusion to fool a camp full of soldiers while being stripped to the waist and flogged twenty or even fifty times. If I failed, then what would happen next would probably make death from internal injuries or infected whip wounds look merciful by comparison.
What would Lu do if he realized the thorn in his side, the boy who had dared to knock the sword from his hand, had a body that he saw as female? No matter what I knew about myself and who I was, that was how they would see me. All of them.
What would any of them do if they realized there was someone like me among them? How would they react if they felt a “girl” had tricked them, bested them, maybe laughed at them?
I flinched away from the thought of my own barracks, men who had trained by my side, turning on me, hurting me…
My teeth had started to chatter. I broke my meditation pose and rummaged through my pocket for the tiny hand mirror I still carried there. The light in the stockade was bad, especially since it was still pouring outside, but I could make out my own eyes and the vague pale blur of my face.
I had dropped my mask after they locked me in here. Small as the expenditure of qi was, it still seemed foolish when I was starved and shivering, and no one could see me. It ought to have been a shock to see myself – my ordinary face – again for the first time in so long. Instead, as before, I was only startled at how little difference there really was between the face everyone else knew as Zhi’s, and the face I had been raised to call Zhilan.
Either way, it was just me.
I felt my heartbeat and breathing begin to calm and even out in a way that the two hours of meditation had not achieved. There’s nothing wrong with me.
This was the beginning of my story. Not the end.
With a squeal of protest, one of the large double doors of the stockade began to open. My heart hiccupped.
Hastily, I fumbled the mirror back into my pocket, centred myself and then, with an ease born of all those many long hours of practice, pulled my mask of illusion back out of my skin. It only took a few seconds. When I was certain the fine threads of qi were settled firmly in place, I rose creakily to my feet and stepped towards the bars at the front of my cell.
Watery silver light spilled into the dim interior of the building from the entrance, illuminating specks of dust and powdery straw floating in the air. I squinted, trying to make out who had entered – Diao? No. The person who dragged the stockade door closed and latched it was far too tall, too wide in the shoulder, to be any of the senior officers. One of the servants – perhaps with food or water? I frowned, pressing my face to the bars as the figure swept off a drenched cloak to reveal…
The Young General, still in full battle armour.
I bit my lip to hold in a gasp of shock and stepped back quickly, falling into parade rest.
Purposeful steps echoed on the packed dirt. General Wu appeared at the barred cell door, eyeing me impassively. I saluted but forced myself to remain silent.
“Well?” he barked. The deep voice was anything but sleepy now, and his eyes glared, hawk-like, through the bars. “What have you to say for yourself?”
He didn’t exactly appear in a listening mood, but the invitation to explain was more than I had dared expect – more than I had prepared for. I fumbled for the words I’d been rehearsing in my head, but they made no sense to me any more. I opened my mouth, felt my breath hitch with emotion, and closed it again hastily.
Wu Jiang’s already forbidding expression was hardening.
You have one chance. Speak!
“There’s a traitor in the camp!” The words came out fast and garbled. I sucked in a harsh breath and hurried on before the general could interr
upt. “It’s Captain Lu. He poisoned at least one of your wine gourds. I think he works for the Leopard.”
One dark brow lifted, conveying mild contempt and vast disbelief. He made a soft huffing noise that might almost have been a laugh. “That – that’s your story? Honestly, I had hoped for something better than pure nonsense.” He was already starting to turn away. “I should have let Diao in here first.”
I tossed aside all thoughts of reverence for his position and reputation. “Sir, I have no reason to lie!”
That brought him back around sharply. “Do you think me a fool?” he demanded. “Of course you have every reason to lie! You were caught, red-handed, trespassing in my tent!”
“Yes, and if I were a thief, the best I could hope for would be to confess and receive fifty lashes,” I said urgently. “Trying to implicate my own captain as a traitor would only worsen my lot. I’d have to be a fool to try that.”
He cocked his head. “Maybe you are a fool.”
“Current situation aside, sir – I promise you I am not.” I looked him straight in the eye, trying to force him to remember our sparring match, and the duel of wits between us it had become. My father always said you could learn more about a man in a single fight than in ten years of close acquaintance. I prayed that Wu Jiang believed that, too.
The Young General’s gaze narrowed. “All right. You’re not a fool. Maybe you’re the traitor. That’s what Lu is telling Diao right now. He’s not convinced you’re even the real Hua Zhi.”
My teeth ground together. “Then have the wine tested. If the surgeons find poison, then you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”
“No. All that would prove is that you’re a clever traitor. You were caught with your head in the wine cabinet – we might have tested the contents anyway.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the cell door, sceptical but willing to be entertained.
I lifted my chin. “If I were that cunning, then I’d grovel at your feet and pretend to be a thief after all, knowing that the punishment would be lesser and that, in the absence of any reason to test the wine, my plan to assassinate you with poison would still bear fruit.”
The words seemed to hit home. He frowned, blinked and straightened. “That actually makes sense.”
“That’s because it is the truth. Sir, I’m not asking you to spare me punishment. Leave me in here to rot for ever if you wish. But I do beg you: do not drink any wine from that cabinet. Do not trust Captain Lu.”
He turned away from me, paced a few steps, and then paced back. “Lu is an imperial captain with more than a decade of faithful service to the emperor. His identity is beyond question. His record is … nearly faultless.”
I was getting through to him. “And I’m a raw recruit with no record at all, and Lu’s making everyone question if I’m even who I say I am. I understand that you have no reason at all to believe what I’m saying, but, sir, I swear to you on – on anything you like, on my ancestors, on my father’s honour—”
“Swear on your mother’s life.” He stepped closer to the cell door, staring at me as if he wanted to dissect my soul. “Swear to me on your mother’s life.”
For some reason, this brought me up short. I had tried, very hard, not to think of my mother since I had arrived here. Not her, and not the baby she carried, the baby that might kill her, one way or another. Recruits were not permitted to send letters home or receive them. For all I knew, this baby could be making her ill, as so many had before. For all I knew, the child was already lost. And Mother … she could be…
I had no way of knowing. Even if I made it through all this, I might never see her again.
Swallowing made my throat burn. “General Wu, I swear to you on my mother’s life…” My voice trembled a little. I cleared my throat. “On my mother’s life. I am no traitor. What I have said is the truth.”
Wu Jiang kept staring at me, wordless. I made myself hold that gaze. Slowly, slowly, something shifted in his eyes. He released his breath. “I can’t believe I’m entertaining this.”
“But you do believe me?” I ventured hopefully.
“Provisionally,” he said, with a faint quirk at the corner of his lips. “At the least, I believe that you believe what you’re saying. But I’m not letting you out of there, so don’t think it.”
I let my head fall back, relief making my whole body shudder. “No, sir. Just … don’t drink the wine. And don’t let Lu get you alone.”
The general’s gaze turned distant. “Now that I consider it, he is always trying to get me alone. A private sparring match. A special wine we could drink together. A quiet game of Go. He even offered to let me use his bath, since he was sure he had the largest one in camp. I thought he was angling to join my staff. Or that he was in love with me. No such luck.”
I pulled a face – I would rather have my throat slit than have Lu in love with me – and the expression was so heartfelt that it twisted my mask before I could prevent it. General Wu’s distant expression changed into a quick, sardonic grin that made his dimple flash.
“All right, I’m going back to talk to Diao – and Lu. Try not to cause any more uproars while I’m—”
The brassy, unmistakable tones of the alert cut through Wu Jiang’s voice, making us both stiffen like hunting dogs, our heads lifting to listen.
“Visitors? Diao will not be pleased,” he muttered.
“The supply caravan isn’t due for another four days,” I told him. My hand closed uselessly at the air by my belt, where my sword hilt should have been. I’d been stripped of my weapons, of course, before I was put in the cell. From here I could see my sword belt tossed casually over the top of a barrel on the other side of the stockade, far out of reach.
“Don’t panic, soldier,” Wu Jiang said, eyes on my clenching fist. “It’s only an alert, not the—”
The urgent notes of the call to arms brought goosepimples to my skin. The distinctive call rang out again – and fell silent mid-note, as if the player had dropped his horn. Or been dropped himself. Through the sound of the rain on the stockade roof, I could hear horses and men screaming. Weapons clashing. The sudden, shocking boom of one of the small cannons.
We were under attack.
Yang Jie. Ma Wen. Yulong.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” the Young General said, softly.
He drew his sword with a barely audible whisper of finely sharpened steel. He turned away, and I expected him to make for the exit, but to my surprise, he hesitated.
“Sir? It’s – you must go, they need you…” Yang Jie. Ma Wen. Yulong…
He shook his head sharply, frustration stamped on his features. “Damn it! I can’t leave you locked up in here, unarmed. I might as well kill you myself. But you’re still officially a prisoner, so stay close to me. If I see you trying to sneak away, I’ll assume you’re deserting and act accordingly.”
He grabbed a key from a pouch on his belt and unlocked the latch on the outside of my cell, wrestling the stiff iron bar up, then allowing the door to swing open.
“May I arm myself?” I asked, already moving away to the barrel beside the door, where my sword rested.
“You won’t stand much chance out there if you don’t,” General Wu tossed back at me over his shoulder as he ran to the heavy stockade door and began to open it. Beyond him I saw fine plumes of blue-grey smoke drifting and shadows of men, moving fast through the rain. I seized my sword belt and began the now-familiar process of slinging it around my waist and buckling it into place.
I’d just pulled the leather taut when there was a crash, a surprised yell and a heavy thud. The stockade door flew violently back on its hinges, heading straight for my face. I jerked out of the way, tripped over my own feet, and ended up pressed against the wall. The door hit the barrel next to me hard enough to send chips of wood flying. If the barrel had been a couple of inches further back, the wooden planks would have hit me instead.
As the door swung away, I caught a glimpse of the scene beyond. Insti
nctively, I grabbed the iron handle, keeping the door between me and what was happening in the stockade so that I wouldn’t be seen.
Captain Lu stood over the unmoving, crumpled form of General Wu, a bloodied sword in his right hand. The captain’s left held the general’s sword. The blade was still clean.
Honoured ancestors, holy Celestial Animals – he’s – he’s killed him. He’s murdered the emperor’s nephew—
Then the Young General let out a faint groan. He stirred on the ground, touching his forehead. Blood dripped through his fingers. Not a sword-thrust then. A head wound. I clutched at the edge of the door in relief and realized there was more sticky crimson under my fingers. Lu must have charged the door as the Young General opened it and managed to catch him in the temple as he forced it back, stunning him. He was still alive.
But not for long. Captain Lu was already lifting his sword.
My feet were nearly silent, but the faint metallic noise as I drew my weapon was enough to alert Lu. He whipped around and struck my sword away from its target – his throat – with contemptuous ease.
“Oh, look who’s out of his cage,” he sneered. “I was going to save you for last, you little worm, but I don’t mind getting it over with now.”
As Lu shifted to face me, I saw movement behind his right leg. The Young General’s bloodstained hand – reaching down furtively. Reaching for his belt. Did he have another weapon?
I backed up. General Wu wasn’t out of the game yet, but the captain was a skilled swordsman. Ruthless and without compunction. A would-be murderer and an agent of the Leopard. And he was between me and General Wu right now. I needed to distract him – force him to focus on me instead of the vulnerable, wounded man at his feet. Give the general time to do … whatever heroes did.
I sucked in a trembling breath and attempted a snarl. “You’re lower than a worm, you traitor!”
Lu laughed through a wide, deranged grin. He darted forward, bringing both swords up in a cross designed to slice me open from gut to sternum.
I dodged, blocking wildly.
