The Magnolia Sword Page 25
“On his bed, in the next room from where we were fighting.”
“What?” Kedan and I cry in unison.
“Those of his household hid in a storage room, but he himself refused to move. He said he’d die with his father and brother if it came to that.” Tuxi exhales. “Fortunately that didn’t happen. We were all lucky.”
He raises his bowl of grape wine. “To good men, men of great might and stalwart hearts.”
Kai and I glance at each other and raise our bowls obligingly, but Kedan clears his throat. “Tuxi xiong, I regret to inform you, but one of us isn’t that good a man.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. There is someone at this table who is no kind of man at all.”
Tuxi looks concerned, as if wondering whether Kedan already had too much to drink.
Kai and I exchange another glance. I turn to Kedan. “How did you know, Kedan xiong? And when?”
He grins. “Remember that day we first saw the Dayuan horses, and you asked me to show you how to read tracks and prints?”
I see where this is going. “My prints gave me away?”
“Exactly. You were too light for a man of your height and build.”
“What?” Tuxi stares at me, then looks around the table, his eyes settling on Kai. “Is Kedan xiong-di saying what I think he’s saying?”
“Yes,” answers Kai. “More wine for you, my brother?”
Tuxi thinks about it for a bit. Then he grins. “Yes. More wine for everyone.”
We talk and laugh late into the night. Fortunately, I do not imbibe too much: The next morning, Kai and I head to the palace for a private audience with the emperor, to discuss what should be done about the city guards.
When we arrive back at the royal duke’s residence, Yu greets us. “Your Highness, Hua xiong-di, Master Hua awaits you in the Court of Indigo Pine.”
Master Hua? “My father is here?”
“Yes, Hua xiong-di,” answers Yu, and withdraws discreetly.
Kai waits until he is out of earshot. “Along with your letter, I sent a message to your father and asked him whether he would like to come to the capital, since you might be here for a while. I told him that we have fought together, that I would like to meet him formally, and that perhaps it is high time he and my aunt met again.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“Your father, in his return message, asked me not to. He isn’t sure how you will receive him.”
Neither am I. I don’t know that I’m ready to see him.
“Let me take you to the Court of Indigo Pine,” says Kai.
We walk silently for some time. Then, as we pass through the main garden, he says, “For the longest time, I couldn’t understand my aunt. She goes on retreats to mountain monasteries, where the nuns expound on wisdom, compassion, and the impermanence of everything. And yet her hatred of your father has remained a permanent fixture in our lives.”
I stop. So does he. With a faraway expression, he gazes at a small tree, its slender branches dotted with creamy white buds, ready to bloom. “And then one day, I overheard her saying that if only she hadn’t fallen ill, then whatever happened during the duel, it would not have been her sister who came out the worse. That’s when I understood that she blamed herself more than she blamed your father.
“She drove me as hard as she did because she did not know what else to do with all her anguish. And when she meets with the nuns, she asks for their help in forgiving your father, but she never thinks that she needs to forgive herself too.”
I bite the inside of my lower lip. “You are suggesting that perhaps my father feels as your aunt does about what happened?”
Grief-ridden and full of self-blame?
He turns to me. “I’m only saying that I can never fully experience how difficult my aunt’s life has been. And that I regret all the resentments I used to carry.”
I enter the Court of Indigo Pine by myself. It is a small courtyard, but more ornately decorated than the princeling’s, with a grove of shapely pine trees, their needles brilliantly green even after a long winter.
A house occupies the northern half of the courtyard. I’m not sure when Yu arrived, but he opens the door for me and ushers me in.
Father has been set behind a low table, on a raised side platform. He is dressed in his most formal overrobe, but it hangs loose on him. He has become thinner in the time since I left home, his eyes sunken. My heart aches.
Yu pours tea, urges us to taste all the different pastries and delicacies that have been laid out, and excuses himself.
Father and I regard each other. I sink to one knee—so much deference isn’t expected in daily life, but it is before and after a major trip away from home. “I offer my humble greetings, Father. My apologies—I should have rushed home to look after you. It is unforgivable that you needed to come all the way to the capital.”
“Take a seat,” he tells me. “It is good for me to get out once in a while. I visited the North in my youth, but I had never seen the Northern capital.”
There is another raised platform opposite the one on which Father sits. I settle myself behind one of the low tables there—not the one directly across from him, but one further from the head of the room, as a gesture of respect.
“Has Father been well in my absence?” I ask.
He assures me that he has been well, given that the war was blessedly short. I ask after Murong, Auntie Xia, and Dabao, and he replies that they are also doing well, extremely relieved that I am safe and exceptionally proud of my deeds.
He does not say that he is exceptionally proud of me, but I am not as disappointed as I could have been. Everything I have done, I did for duty and friendship. Every decision I have made, I made so that my conscience would be at ease.
I am, I realize, proud of myself.
We speak of some household matters. I begin to sense his distraction. He picks up a candied lotus seed and sets it down again. He picks up his teacup and sets it down again. At last he says, abruptly, “You have met the princeling’s aunt.”
My chest tightens. “Yes, I have.”
“Then you know what happened.”
Is he not going to dispute anything? “I have heard what her ladyship and His Highness had to say.”
Father’s hands clench in his lap. “I was—I was not a young man who deserved his good fortune. My father always taught me that character is more important than swordsmanship. But I believed swordsmanship to be character enough. Because no matter what I did, I would always be a great swordsman.
“I did not like the matrimonial agreement my father made with Master Peng. I thought I wouldn’t get along with his elder daughter at all—nor with Master Peng, for that matter. And I was rankled by the fact that the Peng ladies seemed more adept at swordsmanship than I was.
“But I wouldn’t have broken the agreement if I hadn’t loved your mother. The thought of marrying Miss Peng so that the swords would be reunited—that meant nothing to me. The thought of giving up your mother, of watching her someday marry another, that was unbearable.
“What I did was egregious, but it was the only thing I could have done at the time. Even now, all these years later, knowing all the tragedies that have followed in the wake of that decision, I don’t know that I could have acted differently.”
I look down at my hands. “You know I can never truly blame you for marrying Mother. But why did you not tell me the truth about what happened at the duel?”
He turns his face to the front of the room. A water-and-ink landscape painting hangs there, that of a sword-sharp peak. “I went into the duel thinking that it might be fatal for me. I thought I’d reconciled myself to it. But when the moment came, when I was lying on the ground, helpless, and the princeling’s mother came at me, her sword dripping with my blood, I …
“The thought of never seeing you, your brother, or your mother again burned through me like a wildfire. I cannot recall ever making up my mind that I would use
the poisoned bronze lilies. I simply acted. The moment they left my hand I knew that I had not only condemned my opponent, but myself.
“I was in a state of delirium from my injuries when I was carried back home. I woke up days later to the sight of your mother weeping by my bedside. We had lost a child, she informed me. And I was stricken with horror. For the first time it occurred to me that perhaps in my fear and agony, I had mistaken my opponent’s intention. Perhaps she had meant only to take my sword, and not to murder me in cold blood, in front of many witnesses.
“Without cause, I had killed the beloved sister of the woman I spurned. I had robbed a man of his wife and a son of his mother. What I now faced was divine retribution.
“I shook as I asked your mother which one of the twins we had lost. She told me it was our son. My heart shattered, yet—yet such a fierce relief washed over me. I had feared that you were the one who was taken before your time, and that would have been too heavy a blow for an already broken man.”
I stare at his profile. I can’t have heard him correctly. He has always wanted me to pretend to be his son.
“The moment I saw you as a newborn, I knew that I would not trade you for ten sons. You were going to be the bright pearl in my hand, and I wanted nothing but a life of ease and plenty for you. So when I learned that you were still alive, despite my sorrow, my joy was sharper than Heart Sea or Sky Blade.
“And immediately I was terrified. A man who has committed as many wrongs as I had does not deserve to feel such joy. I was convinced that moment of feverish relief shone a light on you and exposed you to all the infelicitous elements in the universe. I used to tremble when you so much as sneezed. And whenever you were the slightest bit unwell, I would be beside myself.
“Finally I traveled a hundred li to consult with a famous priestess. She said that if I wanted to keep you safe, then I should fool the lords of the Underworld into thinking that you did not exist. ‘Have her pretend to be Hua Muyang, your son,’ she said. ‘The lords of the Underworld already have Hua Muyang and won’t send their minions for him again.’
“Your mother thought it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, and I don’t blame her for thinking so. But after she died, I did as the priestess advised. I’d already lost her and Muyang; I couldn’t lose you too.
“And I never mentioned what happened with the princeling’s mother because—because to this day, I cannot bear to look back on the man I was then, or face all the suffering that I have caused.” He still has his eyes on the painting, and I’m still staring at his profile, trying to understand everything he has said.
He has always loved me. He has never wished I were my brother.
I could have gone to my death not knowing that. I could have drawn my last breath wishing that I mattered to him. I could have—
I’m only saying that I can never fully experience how difficult my aunt’s life has been. And that I regret all the resentments I used to carry.
Let me not be angry at him now for things that did not happen, or for things that should be left in the past. And let me not give myself resentments to carry—that cannot possibly be the reason I survived impossible odds to live to this day.
I go to him and take his hands.
Tears spill from his eyes. “I’m sorry, Mulan. I’m so sorry.”
“You are my father,” I tell him. “I can never adequately repay you for raising me, and you do not need to apologize to me. But there is a family here …”
He grips my hands. “That you do not despise me—you don’t know what that means to me. And as for the family, I knew before the start of my trip that I must face them this time. And perhaps I’m at last ready to—”
“Hua Manlou, you come out here!”
The voice can only belong to her ladyship, back from Futian Pass to find the man she hates the most in her own home, invited by her own nephew.
“We’ll go out there together,” I tell him.
A tremor passes beneath his skin, but he looks at me with tired yet clear eyes. “Yes, Mulan. Let’s go out there together.”
A pair of strong manservants under Yu’s supervision carry Father out and place him on a cushion on the ground.
Kai, his father, and his aunt stand in the courtyard, the latter two still in their traveling capes, her ladyship’s flying about her like a flame.
“Kai, give your opponent’s sword to her.”
I notice only then that Kai, who looks openly apprehensive, has both Sky Blade and Heart Sea. I left Heart Sea in my rooms earlier, as one does not, under normal circumstances, enter the royal palace fully armed.
I accept Heart Sea from Kai while glancing between him and her ladyship. The royal duke looks as if he wishes to say something to his wife, but he doesn’t.
She announces coldly, “Today is the day of the duel. Both opponents are present. The rules stipulate that three martial arts experts should serve as referees. Master Yu, Master Hua, and I will fulfill those roles. You may begin.”
I have lost count of the days. Today is the day the duel would have taken place had the Rouran not attacked.
Kai and I look at each other. I can tell that all kinds of disastrous possibilities are racing through his mind, but when I behold him, I feel only affection and happiness.
Discourse on swordsmanship, I think to myself, remembering what he said about wishing for a more literal version of the contest.
I smile at him and mouth the words, putting the emphasis on “discourse.” Startled, he stares at me a moment before returning a tentative smile.
And then a full, radiant one.
I lift my still-sheathed sword. “I begin with a maneuver called ‘the crane glances back.’”
Which is an elegant name for an attack that switches direction midthrust. I perform the move, but at a fraction of its normal speed—and seven paces away from Kai.
“I would counter with ‘the meteor crosses the sky,’ which neutralizes the risk posed to my right flank by your move, and exploits the fact that your move exposes your left shoulder.”
Standing where he is, he sweeps a still-sheathed Sky Blade before him, his motion slow and majestic.
“But my move was a feint,” I say. “Just when I’ve convinced you that I am using ‘the crane glances back,’ it mutates into ‘the dragon’s tail tangles the clouds,’ which takes advantage of your unguarded torso during ‘the meteor crosses the sky.’”
“And I have anticipated that, because ‘the meteor crosses the sky’ changes easily to a centered stance that seems defensive but is in fact an ambush waiting to happen.”
He smiles again at me.
“What are you two doing?” shouts her ladyship.
“Discoursing on swordsmanship,” answers her nephew. “But in a manner befitting our surroundings. In the beginning, the point of this contest was that both sides improved their skills.”
“We have fought four times now, and we have come to know each other’s style and tendencies very well,” I add.
Father looks almost as stunned as her ladyship. The royal duke smiles in relief. Yu is too dignified to smile, but his eyes soften with approval.
Kai and I continue to discuss our craft. He points out something that I have failed to notice myself, which is that I tend to overadjust when I attack to the left. And I tell him that his stance is slightly insecure in certain maneuvers, leading to a slower reaction time.
He salutes. “I am fortunate in your instruction, my esteemed opponent.”
I return the salute. “As am I. I have learned much from you, Your Highness.”
“I might have learned something too,” says the royal duke mildly.
His wife doesn’t take it in the same spirit. She glares at me. “Are you mocking me?”
I bow to her. “No, your ladyship. Your nephew and I have fought real enemies together and come through as friends and comrades. We will not raise our swords to each other again, save as sparring partners, training for mutual improvement.”
“Your ladyship, if I may,” says Father. He gestures for me to come to him. With my help, he gets up on his knees. “I am at fault in all this. My selfishness has brought dishonor to me and pain to many. I have no words that can make up for what I have done, except sorrow and regret.”
He kowtows three times each to the royal duke, her ladyship, and the princeling—the three people most affected by the death of the princeling’s mother. While supporting him, I follow his lead.
“And if your ladyship will accept this token of my humble contrition …”
Father takes Heart Sea from me and holds it above his head.
I feel a twinge of regret, losing the great sword that I can finally call my own. But this is the right thing to do, and the feeling of solidity and substance in making such a choice outweighs any vanity or possessiveness.
With a deep bow, Kai takes Heart Sea from Father and hands it to her ladyship, who regards this object she has so long desired with a strangely detached look. As if she is realizing for the first time that what she has desperately yearned for all along was peace in her own heart, which no blade, however legendary, can bring her, not even when it is offered by her nemesis on his knees.
The royal duke comes forward, lifts me with his own hands, and helps me to settle Father back on the cushion. Tears rise to my eyes at the kindness in his. This is a man who has suffered a grievous loss, but still chooses to see my father’s pain and self-reproach.
Kai comes forward too. With another deep bow, he places Sky Blade, his own sword, in Father’s hands.
Both Father and I stare at him in incomprehension. Her ladyship gasps. “Kai, what are you doing?”
“Master Hua, please accept this as a token of my appreciation and gratitude to your daughter. I am convinced that if it were not for her, neither the emperor nor I would be alive today, and the streets of this city would be awash in blood.”
Kai bows yet again and returns to the side of his aunt, who doesn’t appear half as furious as I expected her to be, though she does glower at him. “Oh, and it’s yours to give now?”