The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan Page 11

  With Captain Helou and Kedan as tutors, our group trains in equestrian skills. Being back in the saddle exacerbates my muscle aches, but I don’t mind the discomfort. I am as competent here as I was earlier in the bailey of the fort: Whether urging my horse into various leaps or deploying bow and arrow while galloping, I do well and bring no shame upon myself.

  Which, of course, makes me want to howl with frustration. Why couldn’t I have fought properly when it counted?

  “Let’s go see the Wall and the beacon tower,” proposes Kedan at the end of the session.

  Everyone agrees, even Captain Helou, who already inspected the defensive works this morning.

  Some big forts are built right up against the Wall itself, especially if they are guarding important passes. Here, however, the Wall traipses over hills too steep for any sizable edifice, and the fort is located one li south.

  We approach on a well-maintained path. The Wall, up close, is grander than I imagined—almost twice my height, all solid brick and stone. We climb a flight of access steps to reach the top, which is the width of two of my wingspans and as well paved as an imperial road.

  Crenellations inset with observation ports and firing holes face north. On the south-facing side, no such defensive measures exist—only a waist-high parapet to prevent soldiers from falling off. Captain Helou calls our attention to the drainage ports, which pour out only on the friendly side: Any plant growth to the north might give cover to incoming enemies.

  The nearest beacon tower also sits apart from the Wall: It is located on an outcrop a few paces to the south, surrounded by its own defensive walls—almost like a miniature fort. Within the walls are barracks for a small unit of men, a kitchen, and a stable. The tower itself, about four times as high as the walls around it, is rectangular at the base and narrows gradually toward the top. Inside the tower, which houses a storage room with large water drums, we climb up on rope ladders, another defensive measure: Should enemies overrun the tiny courtyard below, soldiers on the top can pull up the ladders and hold out for reinforcements.

  And reinforcements, of course, would be summoned with fires at night and columns of smoke during the day—I’ve heard it called “wolf smoke.” Beacon towers are roughly ten li apart, and news of an invasion would travel along the length of the Wall at breakneck speed.

  The rope ladders take us up to a crenellated platform. From the ground, the Wall impresses with its height and bulk. But from the top of the beacon tower, seeing the well-built, well-manned barrier snake across a line of hills stretching east and west, knowing that it continues beyond the limits of my sight, east to the sea and west to the edges of the legendary Takla Makan Desert, more than ten thousand li in total length—I can only shake my head at its utter scale and magnificence.

  And yet . . .

  I know from my reading that during the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu broke through the Wall multiple times—either by finding a section in disrepair or by simply taking control of one of the main gates. And even before a comprehensive wall was built against the . . .

  I find that I have trouble using the word barbarians, as the Xianbei I’ve met so far are no more barbarian than anyone else I’ve ever known.

  Well, then, long before a comprehensive wall was built against the nomadic tribes, substantial stretches of lesser walls already existed, erected by the Warring States to keep out one another’s invading armies. And none of them prevented the first emperor of Qin from conquering those states on his path to unification.

  “You guarded the Wall for a while, didn’t you, on a beacon tower?” Kedan asks Captain Helou.

  “I did. Not too far from here. The commander I served under is still there, last I heard.”

  “How was it?”

  “Tough. Tedious. And surprisingly hot in summer, for all that it freezes your stones off the rest of the year.”

  Yu meanders to the opposite corner from where everyone else stands. I join him. He seems surprised but says courteously, “What does Hua xiong-di think of the scenery?”

  “The scenery is excellent.” Then I lower my voice. “Master Yu, the Wall looks mighty, but how useful is it?”

  Yu glances about to make sure we can’t be overheard. “Beyond these mountains lies a great desert. If an army has marched past the desert and through the mountains, a wall will not make them turn back.”

  “But if the Wall kept proving itself useless, why did more of it get built?”

  Yu’s voice dips even lower. “Because it seemed an obvious solution. It made both the emperor and the people think something was being done. And we have all, at some point, confused doing something—anything—with actually solving the problem.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  That evening, I slip out of the garrison. This is no mean feat, as the gates are already shut and I have to climb down from a parapet, timing it so that I don’t get caught by either the two sets of patrols on the parapet or the two sets on the ground.

  My destination: the beacon tower. She who was too foolish to request a hot wash at the ducal residence must make do with a cold one at the Wall, because in the crowded garrison men wash in groups of thirty or more, and she can’t find any other place that provides both water and privacy.

  The tower has a crew of nine. Four are on watch duty at any given point—two atop the guard tower, two on the low walls that surround it—plus one extra man who cooks, fetches supplies, and looks after the animals.

  I have the advantage of approaching from the south; the wall guards look toward the north, the beacon guards east and west. I scale the wall at the foot of the tower on the southwest side, away from the barracks.

  Once inside the enclosure, I slide along the bottom of the tower until I reach the entrance. It should be barred from the inside, but I guessed it wouldn’t be. The guards at the top of the tower need their food brought up by the cook, who has to return to retrieve the bowls and utensils later, and perhaps deliver some hot beverage to help the guards stay warm at night. If the door were barred, then any time the cook came, one of the guards would need to climb down to let him in, which would quickly become tiresome.

  I dart into the tower, bar the door, and dash to the ­storage room I toured earlier in the day. Inside it is pitch-dark, but I remember where the water drums are, lined up along the wall to my right. Above them hangs a pair of shallow buckets. I feel about until I locate one bucket and lift it off its hook. Then I explore lower and encounter the smooth, woven lid that covers a water drum. My fingers rummage around until I find the gourd scoop placed on the lid. I pick up the lid and reach in with the scoop, but this drum is empty. The next drum is still half-full. I fill the bucket and carry it to a corner of the room, where I spied a drain hole.

  I listen. An occasional bark of laughter comes from the barracks. Overhead, one of the guards stomps his feet, the sound reverberating softly in the underside of the tower. And somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls, a forlorn yet menacing baying, as plaintive as a spring night in the far North, and just as cold.

  I am about to experience exactly how cold a spring night can be. But I feel as if I must get clean, before the grime of travel and fighting becomes permanently encrusted on my skin.

  I strip, begrudging the amount of time it takes to unwind my binding cloth. Sidling over to the bucket, shivering a little, I soak one of the washcloths that I’ve brought. Then I wring it out, grit my teeth, and apply it to my skin.

  So cold. So heart-freezingly icy. Oh, how I long for a bucket of steaming water and a roaring stove an arm’s length away. But the thought only makes the pitiless washcloth drag across my body like a glacier, my goose bumps the size of grains of rice.

  As quickly as possible, I clean myself. With another washcloth, I go over my surfaces again. I am about to rinse out the cloth and perform one more iteration—who knows when another opportunity to wash will come along?—when a guard cries
from above, “I saw someone! I saw someone come over the wall into the courtyard! Where did he go?”

  “Did he go into the tower?” hollers another guard. This one must have been on wall duty.

  I swear. I need to get out of the storeroom immediately. With shaking hands, I pour the rest of the water down the drain hole and rush to the empty drum, on the lid of which I stowed my clothes.

  “Why is the tower door locked?” someone shouts indignantly.

  “I didn’t lock the door!” his comrade retorts just as righteously.

  My washcloths! I dropped them in the bucket. Swearing again, I run and grab them, almost kicking over the bucket in my hurry. From above, a guard descends with alarming speed. I won’t have time to put my clothes on before he reaches the bottom and pulls the bar from the tower door.

  I clamber into the empty water drum, my clothes and boots in a bundle in my arms, and barely manage to swallow a shriek. The drum is not entirely empty. There are still three fingers of ice-cold water at the bottom.

  The guard from the top opens the tower door.

  “If you didn’t push the bar into place, then the intruder must have,” says the guard who walks in. “We’ll need to search everywhere.”

  Given a few more moments, I could rearrange my position and get my feet out of the freezing water. But there is no time to do anything except pull the drum lid over my head.

  “The rope ladders were all up before I came down, so he can only be down here.”

  “I’ll check the storeroom.”

  I hold my breath.

  The door opens slowly. Light seeps in from the space between the lid and the drum. A man steps in cautiously.

  My pulse races. Have I left the bucket by the drain hole? I have, haven’t I? I want to bang the back of my head against the side of the drum. Why rush back for the washcloths and not grab the bucket too? I can only hope the man’s lantern is too dim for him to discover that irregularity—or that he has never paid attention to where the buckets should be.

  “Old Guo! Old Guo!” An urgent whisper comes from above. “Get back up here. Lieutenant An is coming.”

  The guard who climbed down from the top mutters an imprecation. “Young Shen, get back to your post. I can’t bar the door until you leave.”

  “What about the intruder?”

  “If he’s here, he’ll still be here when Lieutenant An arrives.”

  “But—oh my mother, the idiots in the barracks are gambling.”

  Young Shen runs out. Old Guo, still muttering, hauls himself back up the rope ladder to his post. I struggle to free myself—it’s easier getting into the drum than out. Once my feet are on the floor of the storeroom, I dress with trembling gratitude.

  After returning the bucket to its hook on the wall, I slip out of the storeroom. Footsteps sound in the enclosure outside—if I leave the tower now, I will be seen. I wait behind a support pillar. A knock comes and Old Guo descends again to open the door.

  An age of the world passes as the lieutenant inspects the storeroom and climbs up to check the readiness of the beacons. He is not a tall man; in height and build he and I could almost pass for each other. Given the darkness of the night—the moon is behind clouds—I decide to simply walk out of the tower and then out of the enclosure. Young Shen will keep his gaze fixed where he is supposed to look, rather than stare at a superior who might stare back.

  Heart pounding, barely daring to breathe, I do exactly that. The backs of my knees tingle with the certainty of impending disaster. But I leave the beacon tower behind without any mishaps, and the incredulity that wells up inside me at this turn of good fortune is almost as wild and choking as my earlier fear.

  My teeth chattering, my feet so cold I almost can’t feel my toes, I march at top speed toward the fort, vowing again and again that I’ll let myself get dirty as a pig before I take any more risks for something as minor as cleanliness.

  The moon emerges from behind the clouds. Not much of a moon, but I curse at the sight of it—I still have to scale the fort’s wall and avoid four sets of patrols.

  And then something far brighter than the moon illuminates the sky.

  I spin around.

  The beacon tower has become a giant torch, burning against the night.

  Shouts erupt from the fort and the beacon tower. Before a single thought can penetrate my brain, two dots of light flare in the distance, one to the east, one to the west. Cries from the fort intensify. Horses neigh. Shod hooves strike ground, a reverbera­tion I feel in my spine.

  The beacon has been lit. And now towers up and down the Wall are lighting theirs to pass on the news. But is there an attack in progress? I was mere steps from the Wall and stood listening for a bit after I left the tower enclosure. I should have heard something if there was an advancing force. And if there is no enemy storming the Wall, if this is just a prank, then the moment the chaos dies down, everyone will need to account for their whereabouts.

  I get off the path just before riders gallop past, followed by sprinting soldiers. Running in a half crouch to remain out of sight, I scramble toward the fort, hoping for a scene of general disarray so I can slip in undetected.

  My luck holds. At the gate, two lieutenants argue: One wants to take another group of men to the Wall; the other advocates for patience until the already-deployed group reports back. Some of the first lieutenant’s soldiers try to push forward, while others hold them in place.

  Sticking close to the outer wall of the fort, I slip past the soldiers and through the gate. The bailey is packed. The commander comes running, his clothes askew, still putting up his damp-looking hair. At least I’m not the only one caught washing at an inconvenient time. I sidle along the edge of the bailey and pray that none of my companions see me.

  Something makes me turn my head sharply to the right.

  The princeling stands three steps away. He closes the distance between us. “You entered the fort just now. Where were you?”

  I feel like a tree felled by lightning—fine one moment, the next a smoldering ruin. How do I answer his question? How can I convince anyone that even though I was outside the fort, I had nothing to do with the flames lighting up the night sky?

  “I went for a wash—at the beacon tower,” I hear myself say. “There is water in the storeroom.”

  No man, not even one with an abnormal love of washing, would need to secret himself in the beacon tower to do it. By revealing where I was and the length I’m willing to go to avoid being seen unclothed, I have informed him of the truth of my gender, almost as plainly as if I paraded before him with jade combs and pearl pins in my hair.

  It’s an instinctive decision—and an appeal for aid. He is the last person I want to burden with my problems, but if he doesn’t help me, then one way or the other I must confess my deception tonight. The consequences of that—disgrace and expulsion—will still be less severe than the punishments meted out to someone who deliberately causes trouble on the Wall during a time of war.

  But I haven’t come all this way for disgrace and expulsion. And I need him to both hold my secret and absolve me of any wrongdoing tonight.

  He is silent. In the flickering light of a nearby torch, his profile is sharp, his expression severe.

  “Who else was there?” he says at last.

  I nearly give in to a fit of nervous laughter. What a question. “For the wash, only myself. But the guard Young Shen saw someone approach the tower, shortly before Lieutenant An arrived for an unannounced inspection.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “Ahead of Lieutenant An. I was almost back at the garrison when the beacon was lit.”

  He is silent again. In the distance, a rider is returning. The commander has restored order outside the gate. As men clear out of the center of the bailey, I see the others from our group on the opposite side. Kedan waves at us, his h
and above his head.

  “Follow me,” says the princeling.

  Will he keep my secret? My Old Heaven, what if he didn’t even understand what I meant to convey when I told him the truth?

  My heart thumping, we cut across to our companions. The princeling looks at each one in turn. Yu looks closely at me. I clench my hands together behind my back, praying that my agitation doesn’t come across as guilt.

  “Your Highness, should we not go and help at the Wall?” asks Bai, sounding frustrated that we aren’t doing just that.

  “We are at the disposal of the commander,” answers the princeling coolly. “He will let us know what he needs.”

  The rider, a messenger, gallops through the gate almost before the princeling finishes speaking. He steps away to hear the messenger’s report to the commander. Dismissing the messenger, the two men confer softly for some time. The bailey is silent. My nails scrape the centers of my palms. My heart thumps harder. Then the commander calls for his lieutenants. The princeling returns and leads us into our barrack room.

  He studies each man again—each man, but not me. “There is no sign of an invading force. The two guards atop the tower were incapacitated by a single masked intruder, who then lit the beacon. Interestingly enough, according to the guards, the intruder reached the top of the tower not from the inside, but by climbing the exterior wall. Not many people can do that. And in this garrison, everyone who is capable of it is in this room.”

  The pounding of my heart echoes in the back of my head. Even among this group of seven, not everyone is capable of such a feat. Not Tuxi, I don’t think. And probably not Kedan either. Which leaves only five of us. And if anyone besides the princeling saw me going in or out of the fort . . .

  Tuxi is visibly shocked. Kedan’s eyes, as always, go to Captain Helou, who appears more vexed than anything else. Bai and Yu both look impassive. So for the moment, at least, no one is paying attention to me.

  “Master Yu?” says the princeling.