She nodded, unable to resist. Docile as a child, she drank what Willow offered her, then let the maid undress her and, though it was but midday, put her to bed. For a time Vughturoi sat beside her, muttering to himself as he tried to puzzle out the characters of the one letter that she had opened.
Yuan Ti was dead. What would that mean for the Empire’s peace with the Hsiung-nu? Silver Snow tried hard to recall the face and opinions of the new Son of Heaven, but failed: he was just another of the parade of capped and richly robed officials who replied to his predecessor practically like a chorus of yeasayers. It was only men like Li Ling and her father who had the courage to speak against what an Emperor wished to hear. Her friend, and her father: they too had written letters, letters that, no doubt, contained advice and sage discussions of court intrigue and policy, letters she had left unread too long. She must rouse herself, must read them to her husband. She tried to sit up, to reach for the letters, but “not now,” Vughturoi told her, and made her lie down again.
Willow had sedated her, she thought indignantly. She had time for one reproachful glance at her maid before her eyelids closed and the light vanished.
Subtle drumming at the threshold of Silver Snow’s awareness brought her out of deep sleep up into darkness. She tried twice to turn over before her body, still in the thrall of whatever herbs with which Willow had dosed her, obeyed. Her hand, languidly outflung, encountered only furs. What time of night was it? She could not expect Vughturoi to spend the entire night at her side, not when he had been absent from the camp for so long; perhaps he rode now or feasted, holding council with the warriors whom he had left to guard his home, trying to reconcile himself with the old men who saw in his elder brother a hope of return to the violent old days before peace with Ch’in.
The drumming grew louder, pulsing sluggishly as the rhythms in her blood pulsed.
“Willow?” Silver Snow called. She knew that she ought to be shocked at how feeble her voice sounded. “Willow?” This time she had more breath behind the call, but it was so plaintive! That was right; if her husband had spent any part of the night with her, Willow would have taken herself elsewhere. Silver Snow was quite alone, except for that treacherous . . . no, the drumming was not treacherous; why had she ever thought so?
It was soothing, pulsing now as her heart beat, allaying the alarm with which she had waked. If she lay back, perhaps its gentle rhythm would ease her back to sleep: this time a healing, true sleep free of Willow’s noisome herbs.
But no, the drum cadence picked up, filling Silver Snow with a febrile energy that, somehow, she sensed came from outside herself. She rose, pulling garments loosely about her in the closeness of the tent, and went outside.
It was the dark of the moon. Faint and far distant, as if it lay across the desert, she could see the shan-yu's great tent glowing from the fires that burnt within. The drumbeat picked up once again, inciting Silver Snow to walk. Perhaps she should go there, she thought. Yes, that would be best. Vughturoi would see that she was ill, would summon Sable and Willow to tend her and remain with her—or he would remain with her himself.
So convinced was she that she was hastening, padding on bare feet, toward her husband and his warriors that she was not fully aware that her path led in a different direction altogether—toward the dark bulk of the shaman’s tent, from which the drumming came. She gasped as its flap opened, though by no human hand that she could perceive in the darkness, and tried to stop.
Within sat Strong Tongue, stroking her spirit drum by the fire, bending over it with the same concentration that Silver Snow had always brought to her lute. Her head down, a smile of satisfaction glowing red in the light of the small brazier at her feet, the elder woman did not see her prey approach.
No! Silver Snow cried silently. But the same compulsion that forced her to walk toward Strong Tongue’s tent, up to that entrance that gaped and glowed in the firelight, had seized her tongue.
Cold washed over her. If Strong Tongue had indeed summoned her for her sorceries, Silver Snow could very easily die tonight; and who would know? She might have waked alone, abandoned by her faithful women, and—hard as it was to believe—staggered from her tent in search of succor, to be found by Strong Tongue. Who knows? The shaman might even pin the blame for her death upon Willow, who had sought only to gjye Silver Snow privacy. Let her return to her mistress from Sable’s tent (or from a night roving free in the deep grasses), and she would face charges of the blackest sorcery.
She owed Willow better than that, poor Willow who had served her all her life, whose cheerfulness had taught her strength in adversity, and whose quiet mourning after the death of Basich had shown her more of dignity than all of the eunuchs in the Son of Heaven’s court. If she had learned to love from anyone, it was from Willow.
As if aware that her victim was hesitating, Strong Tongue stepped up the beat on her spirit drum. It grew harder and harder to resist. Just let it happen , thought Silver Snow. She remembered how, that night at a riverside camp before she had ever set foot on the grasslands, Jade Butterfly was lured toward the river, how passively she seemed to consent to her own destruction. Strong Tongue would do anything to protect her son, even risk her own life.
I too have a son to protect , thought Silver Snow. The thought swept over her like a torrent of cold water, and she found herself able to swerve one step, then two in the clutter outside the shaman’s tent. Ten more steps, though, and she would be inside. Nine . . . eight . . . sudden pain lanced up Silver Snow’s bare foot. The pain broke the spell that had forced her to obey Strong Tongue’s summons. With a presence of mind that she had only been able to summon once or twice in her life, she bit her lip against a gasp of pain, and turned her stumble into an opportunity to snatch up whatever it was she had trodden on.
She held an arrow, its head curiously fashioned, its fletch-ing bearing the mark characteristic of Tadiqan. Even as she stared at it, the night wind rose, drawing a faint whistling from the arrow’s head. So, it was one of the terrible whistling arrows which, when Tadiqan fired, served as a signal for his loyal warriors to loose their own arrows at his chosen target— which could very well be her or her husband or any other enemy that Tadiqan might choose to kill, if he thought himself powerful enough to do so.
He had been quiescent for too long, he and Strong Tongue. Silver Snow knew that she had been right to regret leaving the two of them alive. She would tell Vughturoi . . .
“Come here, girl.”
Strong Tongue stood at the opening of her tent, drum under one arm, silver and bone cup outheld in her free hand. Whatever it held steamed slightly, and Silver Snow no more wished to drink it than she wished to enter that tent.
She had no strength to waste on words, on defiance, or on anything but flight. She whirled to flee, but she felt herself moving so slowly. Warmth trickled from her wounded foot. Had that arrow been poisoned as well as bespelled?
“Come, girl.” Again the command. Strong Tongue advanced, as arrogant in her power, which was strong now at the dark of the moon, as Silver Snow had ever seen her. “Tadiqan will arrive before dawn. Though I cannot understand why he wants you, he may as well have his pleasure of you before I make an end. Come in and await him.”
I too have a son's interests to protect! The thought fired Silver Snow’s blood, gave her the strength to stand her ground just a moment longer while her foot bled into the dust. But it was hopeless, she began to fear. Blood had strength; Strong Tongue would know how to use the blood she shed to call her back.