Bemused by Tadiqan’s sudden attack, Silver Snow plaited the fabric of her sleeve. Just as a spell of finding and success lay on Tadiqan’s arrows, a spell of homecoming seemed to bind him to Strong Tongue.
Did such a spell now bind Khujanga to his son? And did spells even stronger and more sinister bind him to Strong Tongue?
If so, then perhaps the cordial had weakened them. At least, it would be wonderful to think so, much as Silver Snow doubted it. Shortly thereafter, Strong Tongue beckoned to her son, and the shan-yu turned to speak to some of the older warriors.
A shadow at Silver Snow’s shoulder made her whip around with a speed no doubt facilitated by the elixir that she had drunk.
“Do you wonder, lady, how my elder brother returned home?” Her astonishment that Vughturoi would speak to her after so long a silence drew her out of her haze. She murmured something about “powers of Erlik.”
“Now you speak like a true daughter of the grasslands.” The younger prince smiled. “It is said ...” he dropped his voice, “that in this, as in much else, my brother has the aid of his dam. But it is said, and more truthfully, that we of the Hsiung-nu know our way across the plains that are home to us as a city-dweller knows the way across the small prison that he calls his house. We do not go astray, nor do our arrows.”
Was that warning or encouragement? Silver Snow could not tell. One thing she knew, however: the powers of the Hsiung-nu were not the beneficent healing magics that Willow, taming her fox nature, had learned, nor yet were they the scholarly powers of Li Ling. Those skills were somewhat familiar to her, and the ones adept in them meant her well. These magics, however, were as deadly as they were unpredictable; and the most skillful of their adepts was her deadly enemy.
As soon as it was prudent or possible, Silver Snow withdrew.
When she returned to her tent, Willow eyed her narrowly.
“I thought you might have run free,” Silver Snow told her maid, surprised that her words came out almost as an accusation.
With surprising mildness, the lame girl shook her head and bent to the task of undressing her mistress. As she helped Silver Snow to unbind her long hair, she laid a narrow hand on her brow.
“You seem fevered, Elder Sister. May I brew you a potion? I still have willow twigs, to ease headache and reduce fever,” Willow offered.
“No!” Silver Snow snapped, then flushed. “No,” she repeated more gently. “It was the heat in the great tent. I simply need to rest.”
“So?” Willow raised her level brows without further comment. Only she pulled her mirror from its usual hiding place and showed Silver Snow the taut, pale face of the woman pictured therein.
“It was too hot,” Silver Snow said again. “And Strong Tongue strewed some of her noisome herbs upon the fire. Did you not smell them? Then you must be nose-blind. Just let me sleep.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded sullen. Willow assisted Silver Snow to lie down. Much to her surprise, the maid did not slip from the tent, to change shape and dance the night away with the brothers-in-fur. Even as Silver Snow heard yapping, Willow went to the flap of the tent and paused there, and the yapping faded into the distance . . . and into the mists of a troubled, haunted sleep.
The mists swirled about her, then solidified. Once again, she stood at the opening of the shan-yu' s great tent. She felt very much alone, very cold. Vughturoi . . . Willow . . . Sable . . . Bronze Mirror . . . where were all of her friends and advocates? As she opened her lips to call for them, the wind blew her words away.
Pnce again, the mist swirled. Now she saw her father, younger and not nearly as halt, moving with a stealth that was totally alien to her knowledge of him, creeping toward the horse herds, seizing a sturdy beast with sound wind, and fleeing as far as he might, sleeping in the saddle, just as the Hsiung-nu themselves did.
But he had abandoned a son, a young son. As clearly as if he lay swathed beside her, Silver Snow saw the boy, saw his puzzled, sad eyes. Even as she watched, he shrugged, as if dismissing the loss of a father, the betrayal of a whole life. What must it have been like, Silver Snow wondered as she slept, to have trusted and respected ... a captured enemy? What would it have been like then to lose him?
She whimpered in her sleep. Pounding throughout the dream until it overpowered even the grief she shared with that stranger-lad came the beat of a spirit drum, summoning her, summoning both of them to where their enemy waited with a sharp knife and a cruel laugh.
Silver Snow woke screaming, and it required all of Willow’s skill to soothe her.
She was tired all the next day, far weaker than her wont. Strong Tongue looked sleek and satisfied, like a Hsiung-nu child fed on fatty mutton to the bursting point... at least, she looked satisfied until Khujanga spied Silver Snow drooping in the saddle, ordered that her chariot be brought, and himself escorted her to it with tender concern.
“She does not bear; she does not tend flocks or beat felt; she neither hunts nor cooks,” Sable reported that Strong Tongue snorted . . . well out of the shan-yu 's earshot. “Such fear for a useless, jeweled weakling.”
Children clung to Sable—Basich’s children as well as her own. “Let them ride with me,” Silver Snow asked, and the children whooped with delight.
Children’s pleasure; a day’s respite—that much she could give to Sable, who had ever been true to her. Her brother’s return, however—that she could not promise. Not even Willow could bring her news of Basich; the brothers-in-fur were silent, too silent, on the subject.
A night’s rest restored her, and the next day Silver Snow called for her bow. The whoops of approbation from Vugh-turoi’s men convinced her that she acted prudently in doing thus. She killed several wildfowl before the hunting party turned back.
Willow rode forward to take Silver Snow’s kill from her before anyone else might intervene. Her eyes met her mistress’ with perfect understanding.
“Pluck them and draw them, Willow,” ordered Silver Snow. “Perhaps Sable and Bronze Mirror would aid you. Tonight, husband”—for the first time, she used the title without having to be coaxed—“this one most humbly begs that you will eat in her tents.”
Once again, the warriors cheered this sign of closeness between shan-yu and his queen. Nor was Tadiqan present to glower. To Silver Snow’s astonishment, it was Vughturoi who did that.
And, that night, the shan-yu 's almost childlike greed as he ate a delicately spiced dish of his youngest, fairest wife’s hunting and cookery won back any favor that one day’s illness might possibly have cost her.
After that, by the shan-yu s will, however, they must return to the great tent, where they were greeted with loud, ribald cheers. Before the noisy, nightly gathering in the shan - yu's tent broke up, the old man had decreed a great hunt, which his loyal son Vughturoi would lead.
Was Silver Snow the only person in the tent who heard the sharp snap of broken bone as Tadiqan tightened his fist on the joint of meat that he held?
“Let us take the little queen who brings peace to the Hsiung-nu!” shouted a warrior, boisterous with too much mare’s milk. “Let her also be named the queen who brings game to our bows!”
That brought a yell of approval, at which Strong Tongue glared. Vughturoi turned instantly away, and Silver Snow went scarlet, relieved that her flush would go unnoticed in the shadow and the firelight. The smoke that rose through the ceiling vents made her chest tight, and she put up one hand to press her heart. It was no role of lady nor queen to have her name and titles shouted out into her lord’s tent; she was as much ashamed as she was anything else. Would the shan-yu be angry and turn on her as quickly as he had smiled?