As she sat among the others of the inner courtyards, spooning up a savory soup rich in spices such as her own poor kitchen could only sigh for, a sudden spasm of fear clutched her and made the soup taste flat. This was, as its master said, but a provincial house. If this passed as backward and countrified, what must the Imperial Courts be like?
Would any there accept her more willingly?
It did not matter. She had made the only choice open to her—to obey with a willing heart.
The next morning, when the whispers started again, Silver Snow learned that, despite the local magistrate’s pleas, the Son of Heaven’s messenger chose not to remain another day, but to press on instead. She felt only relief.
But she had not reckoned with the magistrate’s First Wife. “Sister,” said the lady, according Silver Snow the tribute of equality since—-who could know?—one day, she might be the beloved of an Emperor, “a thousand apologies, but I must impose on you to discuss your attendant. ”
The First Wife’s glossy hair was scented with lilac; and lilacs glistened on her fine robes. Though she spoke of humility and apology, Silver Snow could see neither in her dress, her gait, or her speech. The girl waited courteously, feigning attention and eagerness to listen.
“The girl is ugly,” said the First Wife. “Forgive this wretched one’s ill-bred speech, but your maid is so ill-favored and halt. She will do you no credit in the capital.”
Silver Snow cast down her eyes and murmured that Willow had long served her.
“In the North, perhaps such as she is the best that there is to choose.” The First Wife shrugged a plump shoulder as if anything might be expected to happen in the barbarous North. “You are young and far from your home, younger sister. Let me advise you as should your go-between . . . but you have none, now have you?”
“She was taken ill,” Silver Snow found herself explaining, feeling oddly defensive, oddly apologetic on behalf of a woman whom she did not know and who allowed infirmity to interfere with duty.
“Very well, then. I know that she would advise you to accept my offer of three lovely maids to accompany you to Ch’ang-an. That one can wait here until the old nurse is fit to travel, then return North, or . . .” Another comfortable, plump shrug indicated that whether or not Willow found herself well suited was of no lasting importance or concern.
“I thank you, Elder Sister”—Silver Snow bowed—“and I beg you to forgive me; but, having suffered the rigors of travel myself, I cannot bring myself to force one of your ladies—all gently reared—to endure them too. Willow is willing and strong; she suits me well.”
“Indeed, she does,” said the First Wife, ice in her voice and in her spine as she bowed with the merest possible inclination as Silver Snow prepared to depart.
The wind whipped at the curtains of her ox-cart, but Silver Snow could have embraced it like a sister. It was not just relief at being out of that too crowded, too hot, and too treacherous women’s quarter; it was enjoyment. Silver Snow would never have imagined that she would adapt with such zest to travel—or that it would be so hard to conceal her interest and delight at each new day from her protectors, who seemed ever concerned that the hardships of the journey not overpower a lady’s fragile body and spirit.
Day by day, as the land grew less and less familiar, she took increasing satisfaction in peering out from the slit that she had fashioned in the heavy curtains of her ox-cart, listening to the guttural, barely understandable words of the peasants, the arrogant demands and comments of the official and, sometimes, the tax-gatherers, also on imperial orders, who seemed to be a plague upon the land. Her sole regret was that she could not ride out herself among them as she had been accustomed (however improperly) to do at home.
It was not so much that she could not tolerate the crowded towns, or the company of her hostesses, with their constant concerns and stream of chatter about daughters, servants, concubines, and the kitchens. Not all were as frigid and hostile as the lady at her first stopover. Some were actually kind. Others pitied her; and once again, there came the buzzings, the whispers, the sleeve-pluckings. “Poor child, how weathered she is.”
“She is but one among five hundred. What hope has she, with no wealth and that browned skin, of being noticed? Thus I told her; and she said that she journeyed to court at her father’s will.”
“They are strict in the North about obedience, if about nothing else. How mannish is her stride!”
“Let her creep back to her home. Surely, she would be forgotten. Indeed, I think it likelier that no one will ever notice her in Ch’ang-an. When / saw the city ...”
“Once, you saw it, when you were a girl of ten ...” “When / saw Ch’ang-an, let me tell you, younger sister . . Silver Snow became adroit at feigning deafness. Never before had she imagined that words might have edges as keen as fangs or blades. The words of the ladies whom she met, kindly or ill-willing, cut deeply.
At the times when the limitations of women’s quarters and women’s chatter pressed her too closely or wounded her, she reminded herself of her duty to her house and its honor, and held hard to her pride that she, a woman, might serve as the means of its rebirth and the mender of its fortunes.
She realized that in Ch’ang-an she would enter just such an enclosure as those first ladies kept. Perhaps, if fate was kind, it would be a more luxurious seclusion, but seclusion nonetheless. Still, it had been her choice. Although no one dared to refuse a summons by the Son of Heaven, she was fairly certain that the kindly lady at the last house was right: should the daughter of a disgraced noble have failed to turn up, one among five hundred women, no one would have noticed; or, had someone noticed, he would not have cared. What was more, the other four hundred and ninety-nine would rejoice.
Then, her ox-cart waited, and they would be on the road again. Once more, Silver Snow would avidly peer out through the rent in the curtain, Willow beside her. Each day was an adventure. Best of all, however, were the nights when the caravan stopped along the road; nights of firelight and starlight and, overhead, the vast, wind-filled bowl of the sky.
She discovered that she was coming to welcome such nights when the packtrain, cumbersome despite the official’s swift carriage and swifter impatience at delay, bypassed a town, preferring several hours more of travel and a stop on the road for the night.
If only, then, she might have ridden! Used though she was to a more active existence, she dared not suggest it to the master of their party. Already, he might have heard slighting reports of her; she dared not risk his disfavor. Even the horse that she had always considered hers was stabled at . . . the place that she must forever afterward regard as her father’s house, not her home: not anymore. The hurt of that realization faded day by day, overlaid by each glimpse of a new town, or peasants, steaming with sweat as they worked on the land or the roads, though it was deep winter.
Reconciled to idleness as befitted a great lady, Silver Snow watched while camp was made, smiling at the confusion among the official’s servants, approving her own guard’s quick, soldierly ways as the men camped in a protective circle about her cart. Then, once the fire was kindled, her cart became a pavilion that was more comfortable than she would have imagined. She and Willow had their own fire, and, with no walls but the night, their own court, ringed at a discreet distance by her father’s old soldiers.