The Magnolia Sword Page 19

  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 so
ften 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 the 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.”

  “I might know something,” says Kedan, his tone still completely flat. “Captain Helou guarded the Wall for a while.”

  “That’s right!” I can’t help interjecting. “I remember you two talking about it while we were on top of the beacon tower.”

  “That might have been the first time I spoke to him about it directly—before that, I heard it from a cousin of his.” Kedan’s lips pull to one side, as if he’s vexed that he spent so much time talking about Captain Helou with the man’s relatives. “I don’t know the name of the fort, but he said it wasn’t far from where we were, and the commander he served under is still there.”

  “When did he guard the Wall?” asks Kai, his voice tight.

  “Eight, nine years ago, I gather.”

  Kai closes his eyes for a moment. “Then I know where it is.”

  “That’s right!” cries Tuxi. “Along this stretch of the Wall, only one garrison commander has served continuously at the same post for that long. Captain Helou plans to come through Futian Pass.”

  “Never heard of it.” Kedan’s voice is still quiet, but not as listless.

  “It’s not a major pass,” says Kai. “In fact, it doesn’t even merit the term garrison. It’s mainly there because a beacon tower was needed at the location.”

  “Where is it, exactly?” I ask.

  “Southeast of here. Not too far, but I don’t know the precise distance.”

  “But can Captain Helou actually get through it? Does he have the necessary pass?”

  Before I left the garrison, I was given a new pass that enabled me to travel beyond the border under Kai’s supervision. But I can’t use it alone. If I rode up to a border garrison now, from the north, by myself, I’d be escorted to a holding cell until it could be determined whether I’d deserted my mission.

  Kai nods. “He, Master Yu, and I were given comprehensive passes. That’s one reason I sent the two of them off in the wake of Bai’s trickery, because they wouldn’t be stopped on the imperial road for lack of authorization. So, yes, Captain Helou will be able to come through Futian Pass—or any pass along the Wall.

  “But the pass applies to only him; his Rouran escorts will present a problem. Which is why I think he will come through not at a random pass, but at a place where he served—served well, no doubt—and is still fondly remembered by the commander. A stranger asking to come in with twelve passless riders would be refused outright. But a well-liked old subordinate, who now has the favor of a royal duke? He might be able to fool the commander with some grand excuse and manage to get those Rouran riders through.”

  “Your Highness, are thirteen men sufficient to take control of Futian Pass?” asks Yu. “I assume that is Captain Helou’s goal, and not simply to get past the Wall.”

  “There are eighty men at the pass. In open combat, Captain Helou and company would be at an overwhelming disadvantage. But suppose they win the commander’s favor, then poison the food or wine …” The princeling nods grimly. “Yes, they can take charge of the pass that way.”

  Tuxi sucks in a breath. “I haven’t been to Futian Pass myself, but I remember riding by the crossroad that leads to it. The way is little used, as it leads to no village or settlements, but it joins the imperial road only thirty li northeast of the capital.”

  We are all silent, digesting his words.

  “So …” says Yu, sounding a little less imperturbable than usual, “if Captain Helou takes control of the pass, that is where the main Rouran force will come through. And if they do, they will easily get within thirty li of the capital.”

  “And if they reach the imperial road at night,” says Kai, “and mow down the sentries—or if Lord Sang orders the sentries to stand down—then they could be at the very gates of the palace before the emperor is any wiser.”

  Alarm pulses through me. “Who is responsible for the security of the palace? Not Lord Sang?”

  “No, not him,” answers Kai. “The palace guards are selected for their loyalty and skill at close-range combat, and they serve under Captain Chekun, one of my father’s cousins. But Captain Chekun and Lord Sang are on very good terms—which is not to say that he’s personally involved in Lord Sang’s schemes. Only that if Lord Sang wants to deceive him, it should not be difficult to accomplish, given the trust Captain Chekun has in him.”

  “Is there no end to Lord Sang’s reach?” moans Tuxi.

  “Of course there is an end to his reach,” says Kai. “Our problem is that he has orchestrated this scheme so that it takes place at the very center of his web of power.”

  “So … we go into that web of power?” I hear myself ask, my voice hesitant.

  Kai looks around. “Any objections, my brothers?”

  No one speaks.

  “Then it will be as Hua xiong-di suggests.”

  The time of a cup of tea later—not that we have such luxuries
now—I’m still rolling my eyes at the princeling’s pronouncement.

  It will be as I suggest?

  I would never suggest such a thing. I very distinctly remember recommending that we make sure the forces stationed in and around the capital do not leave, so that the Rouran never come south of the Wall.

  Fortunately, my companions are all highly intelligent and understand very well that this is the princeling’s intention.

  Still. Grumbling is good. Grumbling keeps me from thinking about the madly nonsensical feats we are about to undertake. If my mind strays even remotely in that direction, the soles of my feet tingle, as if I were standing above a bottomless precipice, about to lose my balance.

  As it will take Captain Helou several days to reach Futian Pass, we decide to rest ourselves and prepare for our next course of action. Kai also wishes to spy further on the Rouran encampment and get a better sense of their numbers. I do some chores—grooming my horse, sorting through my few belongings. Yu takes some rest—his has been an even more arduous road than ours. Kai and Tuxi are engaged in an intense discussion, presumably on how Tuoba Xi, Prince Anzhong of Luoyang, can convince his father that one of his favorite nobles is conspiring against him.

  Kedan has gone back to the stream again. I waver over whether he’ll want any company, least of all mine, but after some time, I join him anyway. “Dried apricots, my brother?” Mutton jerky wasn’t the only thing Yu took from the Rouran stores.

  Kedan sighs. “How can I say no to such a delicacy?”

  We each eat a dried apricot, him wolfing it down, me taking the smallest bites possible to make the preserved fruit last. The tiny brook meanders by, a scant trickle. Still, plants grow lustily on its banks, and to my surprise, I discover a few wildflowers among the green leaves, the blossoms so tiny they are scarcely bigger than pinpricks.