The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan Read online

  “Cold, for me. I shall sever all ties with cold. Maybe settle permanently in Hainan.”

  Hainan Island was once the farthest southern reach of the Han Dynasty. It’s said to be a beautiful place surrounded by warm turquoise seas, with exotic fruits falling off trees into one’s hands. I nearly burst with longing, but I say, “Pah, what’s Hainan? Java, that’s where I’m moving to, as soon as I can find sailors who know how to get there.”

  He grins, only to glance at the rock face again and sigh. “All right, up we go.”

  “Once we get over and tell Tuxi and Kedan what we’ve learned,” I say, testing a toehold, “we’ll all be able to discuss what to do. It won’t be just our responsibility anymore.”

  And what a relief that will be.

  Kai seems to barely need toeholds, scaling the rock face with the ease of a cat climbing trees. “But we still don’t know enough. I suppose I could send Tuxi down to the encampment tonight, but given that they came to a decision last night and set their plan in motion this morning, the Rouran may not hold another discussion so soon. And of course, given who Tuxi is, I’m loath to put him at risk.”

  I understand what he is saying: We know just enough to be paralyzed. “How far are we from the capital?”

  “I’ve never ridden this way directly from the capital. My guess is three days or thereabouts, depending on the terrain.”

  “What if we all return to the capital? Even if Tuxi isn’t his father’s favorite son, his words must carry some weight at court. Let him warn the emperor that the forces of the central commandery cannot leave the capital. And since the Rouran don’t have enough manpower to overcome us head-on, as long as your father’s men remain in place, the Rouran are stuck here, depleting their rations, waiting for a signal that will never come. In ten days they’ll run out of food and won’t be able to fight anymore.”

  Kai shakes his head. “First, the Rouran commander understated the quantity of supplies they carry, to give Captain Helou a greater sense of urgency. Before you woke up this morning, I spoke with Master Yu, since he pilfered from their stores last night. He agrees with me that they can hold out for twenty days and still be in shape to ride and fight.

  “Second, I have thought about doing what you suggest. While it isn’t a bad strategy, it only keeps us where we are. We won’t even be able to apprehend Captain Helou for ­questioning—he will realize the scheme has failed and choose to remain beyond the Wall.”

  Keeping us where we are seems good enough to me: No war and everyone gets to go home. I maneuver around an outcrop. “What do you hope to accomplish, then?”

  “Remove the weed by the root. Captain Helou’s master at court needs to be exposed and eliminated. We will accomplish that only if we allow their plan to proceed.”

  I groan. “For somebody who is afraid of the wind rustling the grass, when did you become so intrepid?”

  “I’m just more afraid of the alternative—to go on knowing that such a traitor is among us, lying low and waiting for another opportunity. I don’t know that I can take that sort of tension. I might die from it. And you know I’m afraid to die.”

  He smiles as he says that, and my heart lurches. “I need to say ‘I’m afraid’ more often. Apparently that is the way to otherworldly courage.”

  He slithers up another body length. “I’d trade otherworldly courage for some otherworldly astuteness right now. If only I could figure out who Captain Helou’s master is . . .”

  On this I can’t help him at all. I’ve known Captain Helou all of . . . eleven days? Twelve? “What do you know about him?”

  “My father met him at the Mayi garrison several years ago and thought he was a man of great potential. He was hardworking, well-spoken, and intelligent. An accomplished martial artist. Not to mention he looks like a hero from the old tales. My father brought him into the fold, believing he could be a future commander. Possibly a future general.”

  He tests his weight on the exposed root of a small gnarly shrub that I just used to pivot myself higher. “I haven’t known him for as long,” he says. “When I was growing up, my father made sure that I got out of the capital periodically, whether to see for myself what life is like in remote villages or to go with my uncle to the South. But because my aunt insisted that the duel was my first priority, he didn’t put me to many soldierly purposes.

  “That changed this past winter, when our agents north of the Wall noticed greater movement among the Rouran. My father wanted to make sure all the garrisons under his command were at maximum preparedness—and he wanted me to be his eyes and ears where he could not be. My aunt was reluctant to let me go, with the duel breathing down our necks, but she agreed in the end that national peril outweighed personal enmities.

  “For three months, Captain Helou and I traveled far and wide, inspecting garrisons, supply chains, and royal granaries. But I’m afraid I don’t know much more about him than I did when we first met. My aunt always told me that a man shouldn’t say anything unless he has something of value to say. Well, I didn’t feel I had anything of value to say before someone like Captain Helou. So I never asked him how long he was at the garrison where my father met him, whom he served under before, or any such questions—and now I could slap myself for that oversight.”

  And here I thought his silence on those long rides was simply tremendous self-containment.

  “It still puzzles me how he managed to keep abreast of the development of his master’s scheme. We were constantly on the move, and since we made surprise inspections, he couldn’t have had letters sent to our upcoming destinations—that would have alerted me that he wasn’t keeping our itinerary a secret. We were always together, from morning to night. If he were to meet with his master’s other agents, when could he even have —”

  He stops climbing, thunderstruck. “Heavens, the pleasure houses! I have no proof of what he actually did on the evenings he went out for that purpose.”

  I am equally flabbergasted, and have to refocus my attention to haul myself up to a slight ledge. “I’ve heard of men using many ruses to go to pleasure houses. This might be the first time a man has used going to pleasure houses as a ruse!”

  He swears. “Next time anyone I know pulls that out as an excuse, I’ll interrogate the madams the next morning to make sure he actually went.”

  I laugh. Ah, my naïve superior. What if Captain Helou did use pleasure houses as meeting places? I’m about to suggest that to him when my attention is caught by something rolling around in the back of my mind. An idea? No, a memory of some kind. A memory that has faded to almost nothing because what I saw and heard held no significance for me at the time.

  It was dark. And I was drowning in unhappy thoughts. I was in an unfamiliar place, walking fast, pulling my cloak tightly around me because the night was bitingly cold.

  The royal duke’s residence. I slipped out of the banquet, unable to take the gaiety any longer, my head spinning with everything I’d learned about my father. Near one of the alleys that branched out from the path, I heard Captain Helou’s voice: . . . my life or my death I can serve my people, then I will not have lived or fought in vain.

  And another man—one of the royal duke’s honored guests—replied, We who remain in the capital are grateful, Captain. The days ahead will be difficult.

  Kai has by now reached the same narrow ledge. I grip him by the shoulder. “I think I saw Captain Helou with his master the night before we left the capital, outside the banquet!”

  “What?”

  I let go of him and recount my surfaced memory. He grips me by both shoulders. “There were four guests that sat at the head table that night: Minister Buliugu, Lord Sang, General Huniu, and General Li. Describe the man you saw—his features, his clothes, anything—and I will forever be in your debt. The whole country will forever be in your debt.”

  I want to pull my hair out. “But I paid no
attention to the guests of honor when your father presented them to the company. And it was dark when I saw him with Captain Helou and I just wanted to be by myself and—I’m sorry, but I can’t describe this man at all!”

  Kai’s disappointment is palpable, but he says, “Still, that’s really good. In fact, it’s stunning progress that we have narrowed it down to four men.”

  “I’ll think back some more,” I say lamely, more to comfort him than anything else.

  He lets go of me. “If you’re meant to remember it, you will. If not, don’t worry too much.”

  When we reach the top, we lean against a large boulder to catch our breaths. And then it comes to me, not a description of the man’s looks or garments, but a sound.

  “There was a jingle to that man’s walk, as if he were pouring jade beads into a bowl of gold!”

  Kai’s eyes light up like the sky at dawn. “I know exactly who that is.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We are barely halfway down the slope of the next valley when Tuxi comes running and enfolds the princeling in a bear hug. “Thank Heaven and Earth! We’ve been sitting on pins and ­needles—thought you’d be back by sunrise at the latest.”

  At the sight of this embrace, Kedan looks as shocked as I would have been if I didn’t know Tuxi’s true identity. For a commoner to touch a man of Kai’s elevated station in such a familiar manner—that’s a lashing offense if I ever saw one. But Kai puts his arms around Tuxi and embraces him in return.

  Kedan relaxes and lets out a breath. He salutes me formally. “Hua xiong-di, it’s been a while.”

  I smile a little and return the gesture. “Have you fared well since we last spoke, Kedan xiong?”

  “Exceedingly well, my brother.” He sweeps an arm at the ­panorama. “Heaven was my blanket and Earth my bed—it doesn’t get more poetic than that.”

  “A cold, uncomfortable night, eh?” I reply. “Mine too.”

  Kedan laughs and slaps me on the arm. “It’s good to have you back. We were beginning to imagine the worst.”

  Tuxi has at last released Kai. “Did you two go down into the Rouran encampment? You did, didn’t you? What did you learn?”

  “First things first.” I toss everyone a strip of dried mutton. “The only thing worse than Heaven-blanket and Earth-bed is poetic surroundings on an empty stomach.”

  “You raided their store. Well done, Hua xiong-di,” says Kedan.

  “We didn’t,” I tell him. “Master Yu raided the store and gave these to us.”

  “Master Yu is here?” Kedan and Tuxi cry in unison.

  I take a bite of the dried mutton. Mulan of the South never would have touched it; Mulan of the North, who hasn’t slept in a bed or eaten at a table in an eternity, chomps down with manly fervor. “And Captain Helou too.”

  “He is?” Kedan’s face lights up.

  Tuxi’s surprise turns into bewilderment. “Were they not sent on separate tasks? How did they both end up here?”

  “Well, here’s how,” I begin.

  Kai and I discussed this earlier: I would narrate the events so he could observe Tuxi and Kedan, but especially Kedan.

  As my account unfolds, Tuxi’s dismay turns into horror. Kedan . . . fades. At first bit by bit, then, as if someone has stuck a knife in him, his animation bleeds out in torrents.

  When I finish, he doesn’t say anything, but only turns and marches away. Tuxi looks at each of us in turn. When we show no sign of going after Kedan, he takes off. Farther down the slope a thin stream trickles along. By the time Kedan sits down beside it, Tuxi has caught up with him.

  They are too far away for us to overhear, but almost in unison, Kai and I start walking in the opposite direction.

  “His reaction reminds me of yours,” says Kai.

  It takes me a moment to understand that he is referring to my disillusionment after learning the truth about my father. My skin prickles.

  “So now you believe Kedan isn’t conspiring with Captain Helou?” I manage to ask.

  He does not answer that, but says, “Perhaps your father had his reasons for keeping the truth from you.”

  I make no reply.

  “Hua Mulan —”

  “You are the first person to call me by my name since my mother passed away,” I hear myself say. “My brother Muyang died when he was still an infant. But afterward, my name was struck off the rolls. When we arrived in the North, his name was put on the rolls in place of mine. And your aunt still thinks I am him.

  “My father has never given me an explanation as to why he erased my name, and I have never asked. I don’t know that I can bring myself to ask him about your mother and your aunt—or that he will answer even if I do. So those reasons of his that you speak of, I’m sure they exist. And I’m almost as sure I will never know them.”

  Instantly I regret my outburst. But it’s too late. Now I have not only anger burning in my throat, but mortification stinging my cheeks. I stare at the ground, walking faster and faster.

  Silence throbs, broken only by the occasional calls of wild geese flying overhead.

  “That day at home, when I learned that my aunt had gone to my courtyard, I feared a bloodbath,” says Kai all of a sudden, startling me. “Not the tongue-lashing you received, but a fatal combat.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that is how angry she has been in the past, incandescent with rage at your father. I was especially worried because you had Heart Sea with you.”

  I remember her ladyship’s harsh final words to me, ordering me to hand over Heart Sea if I had any sense of honor.

  “I can’t tell you how many times she’s told me, sometimes with tears, but always with that same seething rage, that I must, at all costs, win back Heart Sea. Even after she left my courtyard that night, I worried that she would come storming back to compel us to fight our duel that very instant.

  “Once upon a time, she would have. But now I know that even though to you she might still come across as wrathful, she has changed in some subtle yet substantial way. So don’t be so certain that your father will always maintain an obdurate silence. He is not the same person he was last year or last month. None of us are.”

  I don’t say anything. In the distance, horses neigh in the Rouran encampment. Underfoot, pebbles disturbed by our boots slip and slide down the slope. The corners of my cape and his lift in the wind, sometimes overlapping each other.

  Kai sighs and says, “To answer your earlier question, Hua Mulan, no, I no longer believe that Kedan is involved in the conspiracy.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Not long afterward, Yu’s figure becomes visible over a slope, leading his horse. By the time he reaches us, we are all gathered to greet him, even Kedan, who still looks as if he’s been ill for three months and nearly died several times. Yu’s eyes soften with sympathy as they land on Kedan. He greets Kai first, and then the rest of us in order of age.

  Kai thanks him gravely for his dedication, then he addresses the entire company. “It is good fortune that has brought us together again. It is perhaps better fortune than we can ­appreciate at this moment to have discovered Captain Helou’s betrayal. But our greatest fortune may be that Hua xiong-di decided to come with us north of the Wall. Hua xiong-di, will you tell everyone about the night of the banquet?”

  I redden, unaccustomed to such praise, and give my account.

  “That’s Lord Sang, no doubt about it!” exclaims Yu. “I remember that jeweled chain. But isn’t he only half-Xianbei?”

  “I’ve always suspected that the mastermind behind all this doesn’t have any great desire to preserve Xianbei ways, but instead means to exploit the high emotions roused by the possibility of the ban for his own gains,” says Kai. “The important thing to remember is that Lord Sang is in charge of the security of the capital.”

  Tuxi clutches himself by th
e temples. “And should the royal duke’s men deploy, Lord Sang would have the largest force in the region!”

  “Captain Helou served under him at Mayi,” says Kedan, in a low monotone. “At the wedding where we first met, his mother, who was still alive then, told me that. She was very proud of his having been singled out by Lord Sang for attention and praise. I thought he would rise high in Lord Sang’s service and was surprised when I learned that he had instead become one of the royal duke’s trusted lieutenants.” He shakes his head. “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? If they always planned to attack at the center, then Lord Sang needed someone with a deep understanding of the central commandery.”

  Kai grimaces. I wonder if he’s thinking about just how deep an understanding Captain Helou has of the central commandery, from all those months of unannounced inspections they undertook together. “The court must be informed,” he says.

  Tuxi swallows.

  “But we shouldn’t stop there,” continues Kai. “We should kill the snake with a strike to the head.”

  “How?” asks Tuxi, his voice anxious. “If it’s just my—our word against Lord Sang’s, I’m not sure we can prevail. He is supremely favored at court. That jeweled chain? The emperor took it off his own person to pin it on Lord Sang, to express his pleasure and gratitude.”

  He looks at Kai. “And would you not say, Your Highness, that the emperor trusts Lord Sang just as much as he trusts your father? Had the traitor been the royal duke, would the emperor have believed you, if you yourself went before him and made the claim? Or would he suspect you of being in league with the Rouran before he would lose faith in your father?”

  Kai expels a lungful of air. “I agree with you on the difficulty of the task, and I don’t know how to go about it either. Earlier I thought, since Captain Helou has to get word to Lord Sang at some point, we could lie in wait for him, follow him to the capital, and catch him and Lord Sang in the act. But even this stretch of the Wall is hundreds, if not thousands, of li in length, and I ­haven’t the slightest notion where he will choose to come through.”