The Empress looked suspicious. "Why should I trust you or your remedies?"
"Think I'd poison you? Leave your troops without the one leader willing and able to fight a bloodless war? They'd run wild, burning crops, destroying villages, taking indiscriminate vengeance for your death on men, women, and children. Am I fool enough to make such a bad bargain for my people? The choice is plain: Trust me or trust to luck for your child's fate, O Empress."
Jingo rubbed her chin in thought for awhile, then said, "Tell me what you need."
The clay bowl nested amid the glowing charcoal cakes, smoking and sputtering. Old One knelt beside it, stirring it with an iron spoon. Seated on a low stool, attended by her captains and once again wearing full armor for its imposing effect, the Empress Jingo watched.
Her men watched too, but with more hostility than interest. Their Empress had explained the cause of these uncanny doings. Some muttered that Old One ought to forfeit her life for having frightened the Empress and perhaps imperiled her unborn son, but Jingo quickly silenced them.
"Perhaps no harm has been done to him," she told them. "That is what Old One seeks to learn first, by summoning a vision of the child. If all is well, why kill her? And if he has been affected, she will create a potion to set things right. To kill her for that would be ungrateful."
"No killing, no killing, that's her answer to everything," one of the captains grumbled. He glowered ferociously at the seething clay bowl and demanded: "What have you got stewing in there?"
"A measure of vinegar, another of water, the skull of a fieldmouse, powdered fine, fishbones and scales, a pinch of red earth, a dribble of pine sap, and a sliver of dragon's toenaiclass="underline" Nothing fancy." Old One grinned.
"Andthat mess will let us see our Emperor-to-be?"
"That mess-" Old One sniffed the steam rising from the bowl, then let her long sleeves slide forward to cover her hands as she removed it from the tripod and set it at Jingo's feet. "-and you." She bowed, then said, "O Empress, my lore can summon my gods, but your unborn babe is the descendant of your own divinities. To invoke a vision of the child, both companies of deities must aid us."
"But I've told you: This is the Month Without Gods! Thekami are in faraway Izumo-"
"Then you'll have to call upon themloudly, won't you?" Old One said. "You and all your troops together. When I give the sign, shattering the clay bowl, raise your voices and shout: O great kamiAmatasa- Amarusa-"
"Amaterasu."
"That's the one. Thank you. So it must go: O great kamiAmaterasu, with your blessing we beg to behold this unborn child as he truly is. Have you got that? It is vital that you speak these wordsexactly — you know how it is with magic-otherwise I couldn't be held responsible for the consequences."
The Empress repeated the seer's invocation several times, to make sure she had it down pat, then directed her captains to relay the words and instructions attending them to her troops. Signalmen were placed as the word ran through the length and breadth of the Japanese encampment. Old One watched it all, and while the commotion was at it's height she managed to steal a word with Snow Moon.
"Beloved child of my grandson's daughter," she murmured. "Very shortly, a small clay bowl will smash into a hundred pieces at the Empress' feet. When that happens-"
"— you want me to clean it up?"
"I want you to run."
Snow Moon was a good girl, biddable, raised to say yes first and to ask why twenty-third. Satisfied, Old One waited for the Japanese encampment to settle down. Then she bowed again to Jingo and simply said, "We begin."
It was a very impressive ceremony, one of Old One's best. She swayed and sang and made all sorts of fascinating gestures. She threw pinches of this and that into the smoldering coals, raising little spits of colored smoke. She chanted words in a tongue so ancient and arcane that even those Japanese fluent in Korean had no idea what she was saying. Neither did she. She let down her hair and used the wooden combs to trace strange patterns in the dirt, then danced over them. She carried on in this manner for a long time, until she saw the glazed stares of the onlookers and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that when she gave the signal, they would all cry out the words her plan demanded without hesitation, simply because they would shoutanything just to get this over with.
So she snatched up the bowl and smashed it at the Empress' feet; shards went flying. And from the uncounted multitude of troops, from the throats of the imperial captains, from the mouth of the Empress Jingo herself, there arose an obedient roar aimed for the ears of Amaterasu, demanding that the greatkami of the sun reveal the child as he truly was.
Izumo was very far away, but they werevery loud. Someone heard; someone who thought that so importunate a prayer was very like a direct order; someone who thought that after all She had done for Chuai's widow, it was highly impolite of the lady to come demanding things, especially during the Month Without Gods; someone who was just annoyed enough to change Her mind about the whole Korean expedition as quickly as a sunbeam darts from the Plains of Heaven to the fields of Earth.
Someone who thought that if She answered Jingo's prayer just as it was phrased, it would serve her right.
The gilded rivets holding the plates of the Empress'tanko exploded from their seatings with a sound like the crack of summer thunder. They whizzed in all directions, faster than an arrow's flight, pinging off the captains'tankos and helmets. The iron plates of the burst imperial cuirass hit the ground with an emphatic clang, soon followed by the reluctant rending of sturdy cloth. Yet all this uproar was no more than the whisper of petals falling on water when compared to the Empress' scream. It was not a scream of agony, but of shock, and betrayal, and red-eyed rage. And it wasloud.
Old One heard it only as a very faint and distant sound at her back. She had taken to her heels the instant after she'd smashed the clay pot to pieces. She was remarkably speedy for a woman of her age and she didn't stop running until she was in the midst of the Korean forces.
She had already called for an audience with the ruler of the kingdom of Silla by the time Snow Moon caught up with her, accompanied by a familiar third party.
"Who invitedyou?" Old One snarled when she saw a breathless Matsumoto Yoshi clinging to Snow Moon's arm.
"As an honorable warrior, I still consider myself to be this beautiful maiden's prisoner," he replied, panting. "Besides, I'm not stupid enough to face the Empress now. Not after what you did to her. Not until she forgets that I was the one who introduced her to you."
"That might take some time," Old One said. "I left her with rather a large memento of my visit." She shrugged. "I don't know why she's so angry. She's the one who wanted to know how her unborn child was doing."
"She thought she was asking Amaterasu for avision of the child," Matsumoto Yoshi said. "The child itself has had three whole years' growth in the womb!"
"Still in there, too. And her unable to give birth to it until the war is over," said Old One. "Tsk. You know, for a woman, and an Empress, and a general, she really ought to pay closer attention to how she words her commands."
The king of Silla emerged from his tent just then; Old One and the others bowed before him. "O great ruler," she said. "I am a seer and I bring you news: The war is ending. I promise you that shortly, word will come from the Japanese Empress herself, suing for peace."