The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan, Page 2

  Does Yuan Kai train with a similar rigor? How does he get away from home long enough to find me? Father doesn’t like me to go anywhere by myself—even dressed as a man—for more than half a day.

  Stop thinking. Practice isn’t over yet. Listen!

  I shuffle the small, soft projectiles I hold, four in my left hand, three in my right.

  The air sings—Father has released his remaining projectiles at once. I launch all seven of mine, also in a single motion.

  “You got them, jiejie!” cries Murong.

  I already know—I heard seven soft collisions—and can’t help a small smile. I don’t always love my training, but I love what that training enables me to do. Today, it has facilitated perfection.

  I undo my blindfold to the sight of our courtyard littered with tiny grain sacks, and Murong busy gathering them into a basket.

  When we lived in the South, our house on Lake Tai was set apart, its spacious grounds enclosed by high walls topped with glazed tiles. Then it didn’t matter what weapons I used or how much noise I made. But here in the North we’ve had to adjust our training methods. In theory, we still have our own home. But it’s a small courtyard dwelling packed together with other similar courtyards, the alleys in between narrower than my wingspan.

  In such surroundings, the black and white playing pieces of a go game, which I trained with in the South, would be much too loud. Auntie Xia, always resourceful, made hundreds of millet-filled sacks from fabric scraps, each no bigger than the pad of my thumb.

  Murong brings me his basket, brimming with tiny sacks. “Can I keep a few to play with after I finish my calligraphy practice?”

  I squeeze his shoulder. “Of course.”

  “Will you come and grind ink for me?”

  Murong grinds better ink than I do—his always turns out the perfect consistency, whereas mine can be either too sticky or too watery. What he really wants is some company as he writes his characters.

  Before I can agree, Father says, “I need to speak to your sister, Murong. Go practice by yourself.”

  I have avoided looking in Father’s direction, not wanting to know that my perfect record today has again made no impression. It’s almost a relief to hear his unusually tense tone and see his drawn expression: He won’t be addressing the matter at all.

  Yet my heart lurches. He is going to speak of the duel. I know it. He has been quietly making arrangements for our ­travels, but he hasn’t involved me, telling me only that I must devote all my time to practicing.

  “I’ll be there soon,” I tell Murong.

  He leaves with the basket. Dabao, Auntie Xia’s stout son, lifts Father and heads for the reception room.

  Father would have cut an imposing figure in his youth. Even now, with his sharp gaze and hawklike features, he appears every bit the great swordsman. It is only in times like this, when he must rely on Dabao to move even a few steps, that his weakness is revealed.

  We spoke of his paralysis once and only once. I was ten, bored and fed up with the grueling training he put me through day after day. I wanted to jump on a skiff and punt through a forest of water lilies on the great shimmering Lake Tai. I wanted to read under the shade of banana fronds on the terrace. I wanted to go with Mother to the marketplace and examine the odd and fascinating wares that had come from far, far away.

  I went through the motions, waiting for practice to be over and my day to truly begin. After issuing several admonitions, each terser and more severe than the last, Father finally said, with barely leashed anger, “Do you want to become like me? Do you believe I have always been a cripple? No. I walked into the duel and never walked again afterward.

  “You will not allow this to happen to you. You must be so good that you will win overwhelmingly. Because if you don’t, if you have any weakness at all, your opponent will exploit it ruthlessly. And you are already at a disadvantage because you are a girl. Do you understand?”

  I stared at him, not because he’d raised his voice—he hadn’t—but because of the sheen of tears in his eyes.

  “Do you understand?” he repeated, his words quiet, almost inaudible.

  I nodded, more in confused obedience than anything else. But I did practice much harder the next day. And the day after. And the day after that.

  And I have never let up since.

  I follow the men to the reception room. It’s a narrow, cramped space—every room in this dwelling always feels narrow and cramped. At the head of the room is a raised platform. Dabao lowers Father onto the platform, behind a low table. Father manipulates himself into a cross-legged position.

  “You can go back to your mother,” he tells Dabao.

  Dabao’s face lights up with a wide smile—he is in his early thirties but still has the mind of a child. He bows and hurries out.

  Folding my hands in front of me, I lower my face. “Father has instructions?”

  A long moment passes.

  “I received a letter this morning. The duel is to be postponed.”

  My head snaps up. “Postponed? Surely nothing has happened to my opponent!”

  Father hands me a letter. I immediately recognize the strong, sharp handwriting—at least Yuan Kai wrote himself. I glance at Father, hoping he hasn’t noticed my disproportionate distress. He looks not at me but straight ahead. I swallow once before I begin to read.

  To the venerable and esteemed Master Hua,

  Pray accept the sincere greetings of this member of a later generation. The good fortune of calling upon Master Hua in person has yet to be granted this humble pupil, which makes it more regrettable that in this humble pupil’s first missive to Master Hua, he must convey infelicitous news.

  As Master Hua has perhaps heard, the situation near the border grows tenser by the day. Open conflict with the Rouran appears inevitable. When the fate of the realm is at stake, each man must step forth and embrace his duties. And national peril must, this humble pupil hopes Master Hua will agree, outweigh personal obligations, however ancient and all-consuming.

  This humble pupil deeply regrets that in fulfilling his obligation to his country, he will not be able to participate in the contest as originally scheduled. He begs Master Hua’s generous forgiveness and hopes to prove himself at an auspicious later date.

  This unworthy pupil extends his devout wishes for Master Hua’s peace and well-being and his highest regards to Hua xiong-di.

  Yuan Kai

  I read the letter twice. It may be courteous, composed in the elaborate language required for formal correspondence, but it is no apology. It isn’t even a negotiation. We have simply been informed that my opponent will not be there for the most important appointment of our lives.

  Yes, there has been talk of trouble to the north—in the marketplace, rumors are rife. And yes, the whispers grow louder and louder that open war could erupt. But it hasn’t happened yet. Not to mention, on a battlefield with thousands of horses, hundreds of chariots, and foot soldiers beyond count, where a general’s strategy requires the movement of entire regiments, a single martial artist’s skills at close-quarters combat are completely wasted.

  It makes no sense at all that Yuan Kai has reneged on the duel for the sake of some defensive effort to which he could make only a negligible contribution.

  I hand the letter back to Father. “I wasn’t aware that he had the power to decide when the duel is or isn’t to be held.”

  My tone is scathing. At our meeting, he had given no indication that he was going to withdraw. I think back to his parting words—we could have been . . . friends—and feel personally betrayed.

  “The situation with the Rouran may be more dire than we supposed,” answers Father. He doesn’t sound as angered as I would have expected for this insult. He only sounds . . . heavy. “I was highly displeased when I received the letter, and had to restrain myself from immediately composing a
reprimand. But —”

  Before he can continue, loud knocks erupt at the end of our lane.

  “Every family must send one person to the marketplace!” shouts a man outside.

  “Hurry. The imperial messenger will be here soon!” cries another.

  My heart thumps, but I turn back to Father. “You were saying, sir?”

  He shakes his head. “Go to the marketplace. We will speak later.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. There is no use badgering him to tell me anything before he is ready. There has never been any use. “Yes, Father.”

  Back in my room, I change into men’s clothes, put my hair up in a topknot, and cover the slightly too-large knot with a square of brown silk. In the bronze mirror that once belonged to my mother, my reflection is bright but somewhat distorted. Still, that’s good enough: I only need to see that my topknot is neat and properly centered.

  I would much rather go out as myself, a young woman, but Father has not allowed that in years.

  Auntie Xia waits for me at the gate of the courtyard, the lines on her face etched deep with worry. “Hua gu-niang, you aren’t wearing enough. Put this on.”

  Obediently, I let her wrap me in Father’s thickest cloak before heading out the front door. Auntie Xia’s admonishments follow me. “Turn your back to the wind. Don’t catch a cold!”

  The marketplace is full to the brim when I arrive. I stand unnoticed at the edge of the crowd as men speak to one another, their voices rising and rising until the guards shout for everyone to be silent. We wait for the time of an incense stick—­blowing on our hands, stamping our feet, me wishing that my cloak had a hood—before I hear riders approaching from the west. Soon the guards order us to line up in neat columns.

  The imperial messenger, flanked by four outriders, gallops into the marketplace. All the waiting men—and I—kneel. But I keep my face up, curious to see the messenger. He will probably be Xianbei, and I have never seen anyone Xianbei up close.

  During the Qin Dynasty, a wall that stretches from the eastern sea to the western deserts was constructed, at the cost of a million lives, to keep out the nomadic tribes that roam the wastelands to the north. The Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran—in the South, these tribes are known as vast, warlike hordes with their hearts always set on the fertile plains inside the Great Wall. The illustrious Han Dynasty assiduously maintained and expanded the Wall. When that dynasty at last fell after more than four hundred years, the North splintered into many squabbling minor states.

  So it is perhaps ironic that the power that eventually arose and unified all those Northern states under a single banner was nomadic in origin: the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe. In the South they are referred to as “the barbarian court,” even though as rulers they don’t seem noticeably worse than anyone else.

  I arrived in the North expecting to see barbarians everywhere. I haven’t been out and about much—we’ve mostly kept to ­ourselves—but still, it has been plain to see that the Xianbei are few in number, compared to Han Chinese. Certainly I ­haven’t met any in this town.

  The imperial messenger, other than being a tall, broad speci­men, doesn’t seem particularly foreign. Nor is he dressed in furs or other exotic garments, but in a more striking version of the imperial livery, scarlet on black, with an impressive jeweled toque covering his topknot.

  “The Rouran invade to the north,” he announces. “By orders of the emperor, each household is to contribute an able-bodied male for the realm’s defense. No exceptions! Conscripts are to report tomorrow at dawn.”

  Cries of dismay erupt all around me, but I’m too stunned to make any sounds. One man per household does not place an equal burden on all households. And of the three men of our small household, Father is disabled, Murong is still a child, and Dabao becomes anxious and difficult to manage when he is farther than twenty paces from his mother.

  And then I do gasp. Officially, at least, Murong, Dabao, and Father are not the only men of this household listed on the sub-prefecture roster of residents.

  There is another, by the name of Hua Muyang.

  Muyang, my twin brother, died when we were still infants, not long after Father returned paralyzed from the duel. Perhaps the loss of his son and his mobility, coming one after the next, were too great for Father to bear. Muyang’s name was never taken off the roster in the South. And after our flight to the North, Father again made sure that his name was duly recorded.

  While mine was the one erased all those years ago in the South, and never registered here in the North.

  That has long cast a shadow across my heart, but now it means . . . now it means that even if we could somehow convince the sub-prefect of the unsuitability of Father, Murong, and Dabao, we must still produce Hua Muyang.

  Someone taps me on the shoulder. “Young xiong-di? Young xiong-di?”

  I realize that I am panting, my hands over my face. A man of about Father’s age peers at me, his eyes sympathetic. “Are you all right, young xiong-di?”

  I manage a nod. “Thank you, Uncle. I’m fine.”

  The messenger and his outriders are already gone. The sub-prefect announces that at dawn the conscripts must report to the north gate, where their names will be checked against the rolls. Any family that does not submit a tribute can expect to have one seized, along with the family’s home and possessions.

  The reaction from the crowd is muted—or perhaps it is only the din in my head drowning out all other sounds. Did Father deduce from Yuan Kai’s letter that a general conscription had been declared? Why didn’t he say anything? We could have gathered up what we could carry and hurried out of town before the imperial messenger was even a cloud of dust on the horizon.

  Wait—Father went out earlier in a hired sedan chair, the reason my practice session started late. And when he came back, he was silent and haggard. He must have gone to the town gates and found them already closed. Then he returned knowing that while I might be able to scale the town walls and leave in secret, everyone else in the family was stuck.

  My nails dig into my palms. I am in danger of panting again, the panic in me rising and rising. I feel a wild urge to pivot and run, away from this wretched place, this wretched day.

  And yet I cannot move a single step.

  At least I’m not the only one rooted in place. All the men around me, even those who are talking fast and gnashing their teeth, are still trying to come to terms with the suddenness and severity of the conscription.

  But when they recover a little from their shock . . .

  I pivot and run. My feet pound on the cobbled streets, carrying me past the blacksmith’s, which I visited not long ago—my practice sword, badly dinged by Sky Blade, needed its edge reworked—to the carter’s next door.

  I know how to ride and I’ve been taught a thing or two on judging horseflesh. A glance at the carter’s pen tells me that there are no exceptional steeds to be had: They are dray horses, not bred for either speed or agility. I point at the sturdiest-looking of the lot. “I’ll take that one. And you’ll throw in the saddlery.”

  The price the owner names is three times the horse’s worth. I pull out the large jasper pendant, almost the size of my palm, that I wear under my tunic. Mother used to stroke it when we sat together on our terrace overlooking Lake Tai. But there is no time to go home and get money—there will be no horses left when I return.

  A horde of customers rushes in as I depart with my mount—and a void upon my chest, where the pendant used to nestle.

  Some streets I pass are completely empty, quiet except for fits of sobbing from courtyards to either side. Others are clogged with townspeople frantically asking questions of one another.

  Outside our front door, Auntie Xia is waiting for me. News must have already reached her: Her entire face is red and puffy. She takes one look at the horse and fresh tears leak from her already red-rimmed ey
es. “But my Dabao—he can’t ride.”

  I squeeze her arm. “I know that, but I can.”

  Auntie Xia stares at me. “What do you mean, Hua gu-niang?”

  I give the reins of the horse to her and head to the reception room. Father is still in the same spot, Yuan Kai’s letter in his lap.

  “The conscripts are to report tomorrow at dawn,” I say. “I bought a horse.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” He does not look up. “Must you go?”

  Must I go? My stomach hurts at the question. “The punishment is forfeiture of home and property if no one shows up. And there is no one else here who can.”

  Father’s neck droops farther; his face is almost parallel to the letter. “Then you have much to do. Prepare accordingly.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Murong clutches onto my arm. “Will you come back, jiejie?”

  I wonder how many frightened children are asking this question right now, all over the North. And how many frightened conscripts are about to give the same meaningless answer. “Of course, silly.”

  “Really?”

  I tap his still-chubby cheek. “What’s this, Murong? ­Haven’t you seen what your jiejie can do? Just this morning, I hit ­forty-nine targets in midair—while blindfolded!”

  “I know that. But on the battlefield there will be thousands of arrows flying. How will you get them all?”

  In my mind’s eye I see huge swarms of arrows, so many that they blot out sunlight. Of course there is no hope of deflecting them all.

  I wrap an arm around my little brother. “Not everyone in an army fights on the front lines. I might become a messenger. Or a cook. I bet they’ll need a lot of cooks for all those soldiers. And I don’t even have to be good. Battlefield food is supposed to be awful, right?”

  Murong blinks, his expression somewhere between wanting to laugh and trying not to cry.

  I swallow a lump in my throat and rub his head. “It’s all right. I’ll keep myself safe.”