“This is not yet my funeral feast,” Khujanga grumbled at her as she urged him back toward the comfortable rugs and curtains. Yet satisfaction at Silver Snow’s pretty show of concern underlay his grumbles, and he seemed pleased to lean more heavily upon his young wife than he did upon his long spear. The skull cup lay untended outside until Strong Tongue sent a child to take charge of it.
Shadows like the strokes of a master calligrapher’s brush fell across the grasslands, tingeing their green with evening by the time that Willow pronounced herself satisfied with Basich’s condition and Silver Snow could persuade Khujanga to take a little more of the dwindling supply of restoratives that she had brought with her from Ch’ang-an. They were doubly precious now: who could tell whether a letter requesting more of the elixirs or the herbs from which Willow might possibly be able to compound them would ever reach its destination, or whether she could believe that a reply to such an appeal, would fall into her hands, rather than the jaws of the white tiger?
There would be time, Silver Snow hoped, to concern herself with her future fortunes: for now, for this moment, those whom she guarded and who guarded her were safe; she herself was safe; and Strong Tongue, her son sent away at the shan-yu's orders, was held at bay. She sat glowering, tending the glowing fire whose sanctity, she clearly appeared to feel, would be polluted if Silver Snow or Willow dared even to approach it. Or was it simply the envy of a woman supplanted by a younger wife, whom she was now determined to outcook and excel in all other ways?
Silver Snow shook her head and pursed her lips; though, when Khujanga pressed her to speak her sad thoughts, she smiled and turned the subject. Had she the strength, she knew, she should call for music and sing. A melancholy as terrible in its way as the dreams that she had had possessed her. Today she was safe; this hour she might sing for a lord who was as benevolent to her as she dared expect: but what of tomorrow? She dared not even confide her fears either to her lord, whom they might agitate fatally, or to his younger son, who might consider them disloyal or a sign of weakness. Even to admit them might make her vulnerable to worse assaults than she already had endured.
Though the light outside the shan-yu 's tent was fading toward nightfall, the heat of the day had not yet subsided. Only the day before, Khujanga had spoken of breaking camp and riding toward the highest summer pastures in the foothills of the Heavenly Mountains where the streams, fed as they were by the ice of the highest peaks, never failed, even in the hottest weather.
The constant arrival of more and more Hsiung-nu—who reined their horses sharply in, then leapt down—cast up clouds of dust that danced in the light of the fire and the sunset at the far-off western horizon. What lay there? she wondered. Not even the Hsiung-nu, great travelers that they were, could say for certain.
She coughed, restrained an urge to tear at the high-throated closing of her silken gown and jacket, and forced her hands to rest in her lap. Surely the dust would cast Khujanga into spasms of coughing? But no, after a life spent on the grasslands, the shan-yu was inured; he only wheezed slightly, his slits of eyes closed, his head falling forward onto his chest in what looked like the easy slumbers of an old man.
Old men dozed in the warmth, she thought, while it fell to others, as well it should, to labor to tend them. Who tended her father now? she wondered. Lands, wealth, and honor he had once again; but no obedient daughter to kneel near to hand, to provide him with every comfort including the strong support of a son-in-law and the joy of sturdy grandsons to honor the Ancestors and plump, pretty grandchildren who would form alliances with other ancient lines.
For a moment, the shan-yu, though he meant her nothing but good, seemed to be one with all of the other Hsiung-nu. They were all aliens, savages, and she was stranded among them in this endless ocean of dust and grass.
She was young, lovely, yet she had been given more as daughter than as bride to a withered barbarian, given in trade, though custom and courtesy called it a marriage; she would never have children, and when the heat in her blood finally cooled, when its pulsing finally slowed, she would die alone, unhonored. She could feel that pulse now. Already it was growing slower, and soon it might stop, and she would gasp and die, of the loneliness and dust, if of nothing else. All of the old songs had been right; the life of a man or woman of Flan among the grasslands was arid, bitter, and short.
Only that slowing throb broke the silence of her despair. She had known sorrow as absolute only once before. And then, she thought, then I wrote out my sadness on a leaf, and Willow hurled it over the wall. And that one thing, that insignificant little leaf, brought me friendship such as I had never known.
Perhaps such a joy could come out of this sorrow too. The throbbing subsided, then ceased; but the silence was welcome this time. Out of sorrow might come satisfaction. Silver Snow thought of the words of the Master, Confucius, of her months in the Cold Palace, and of the far worse fates that Li Ling and her father had endured for years without complaining. By her own exile, she brought them wealth and honor; and she brought even more to Ch’in. After all, was she not hailed as the queen who brought peace to the Hsiung-nu? Whether or not they wanted such peace, the Middle Kingdom did. Weighed against that, what was her one small life? Obedience had been her duty lifelong; she was privileged that her obedience could bring her land, her race, and her loved ones such a rich gift.
The thought made her able to smile once again as she glanced over at her husband, who snatched sleep when he might, as any proven warrior knew was only prudent. His cup—a plain one of incised bronze—had fallen from his hand. Carefully Silver Snow reached across him and set it upright, then turned back to regard Willow, as she sat with Sable beside Basich, her head lowered as befitted a modest maid of Ch’in, if not these Hsiung-nu, and offered him food and drink. Now that, Silver Snow thought, as Basich laughed and tried to trick Willow into looking up, was an interesting sight. Basich had young children, lacked neither horses nor power within the clan, and obviously did not despise Willow for being lame and ill-favored ... if indeed she was. Here, so far away from Ch’ang-an and the Bright Court’s inflexible pronouncements about beauty, Willow’s burnished hair and level brows had a kind of comeliness all their own.
Ah, so he had won a smile from the maid, Silver Snow observed. To think she had taunted Willow about fox kits. Well, to all creatures there was a season; perhaps she did wrong to keep the maid so closely tied to her. It might be auspicious should a marriage be arranged. I should ask Vughturoi. The thought flickered into Silver Snow’s consciousness and out again so quickly that she barely had time to flush.
Even as she watched, Basich too seemed to relax upon the rug that Willow had dragged out to him, resting as did his lord before the promised feast that, even now, Strong Tongue was supervising.
How hot the cookfires were! Silver Snow forced herself not to gasp and reached for her own cup. Even the fermented sourness of mare’s milk would cool her throat and dissolve what felt like a thick layer of dust that coated it. She could almost feel the liquid trickling down her parched throat.
“Nay, little one! Do not drink that!”
The harsh crack of that order came so quickly that Silver Snow’s hand jerked. Almost immediately thereafter, the shan-yu flung himself at her, the impact of his body, which was still wiry from a lifetime in the saddle, knocking the goblet from her hand and hurling her back against her cushions and carpets with him above her as if they were, in flesh as in oath, truly man and wife.