Chapter 5

Life in the army was hard, but it was wonderfully free.

The Hurong and Jing continued to clash, though there were no major engagements, only harassment and raids. After leading the destruction of several Hurong bands, I received one promotion after another. I now commanded a small unit of my own, the youngest commander of a hundred men in the camp.

Summer came. Torrential rain battered the region between the Yangtze and Huai rivers, while the desert remained mostly clear and dry.

Now and then, I heard news from the capital.

The empress was said to be kind and charitable. She had opened many relief houses and schools, arranged for porridge to be distributed in the disaster-stricken regions, and voluntarily taken up fasting. Even palace expenses had fallen considerably. People throughout the realm praised her. More than a few poets wrote verses honoring her compassion.

Even the emperor had issued some sound policies. Something seemed wrong as soon as I heard them. They sounded much more like my sister’s work. I had no idea how she had managed to make him listen so willingly.

But I was not surprised.

My sister had always been clever and kind. Given another life, she would only accomplish more.

This time, she could probably live well even without me.

“Siqiong has written to me again.” When no one else was around, Lin Shao and I tacitly called her by name instead of Her Majesty. “Why won’t you tell her you’re here?”

I sat on a rock sharpening my sword and did not look up. “I don’t want her worrying about me.”

Lin Shao gave a snort of laughter. “Have you thought what we’d tell her if something happened to you, girl?”

My hand paused on the blade. I looked up. “Tell her I’ve gone traveling. I’ll prepare a few dozen letters. You can send her one every six months.”

Lin Shao said nothing.

He nearly choked. “I was joking, and you’re actually making arrangements?”

I stood and sheathed my sword. “I won’t die.”

“I don’t know who you take after.” Lin Shao looked bemused. “Still in your teens, and so stiff and solemn. Never a smile. Siqiong is gentle and sweet, and your mother loved laughing and making mischief…”

I gave him a puzzled look. “When did Madam ever love laughing and making mischief?”

The Madam I remembered seldom smiled. She carried a cold stillness with her.

Lin Shao froze slightly. The smile slowly drained from his face.

“She loved wearing red. She was a wonderful swimmer, too. She could go into the sea to kill enemies. The Japanese pirates were scared witless every time they saw her. They called her ‘the assassin like fire.’” His words came almost as a sigh. “I’ll never forget it. We were in the southwest. She’d gone into the sea, and when she surfaced, she gave me such a radiant smile. She shook off the water, and there was a rainbow over her head. I told the person beside me that my sister looked like a goddess.”

I listened intently. Try as I might, I could not reconcile that bright, spirited girl with Madam, always dressed in blue.

But I could picture the scene.

“…She had a splendid horse, with four white feet. It would let only her ride it. No one else could tame it.” Lin Shao’s gaze drifted. “Before she went back to the capital, she set it free. Later, it kept returning to our post. When it couldn’t find her, it would circle the place and leave again.”

“Time has passed so quickly. It’s been so very, very long since I last saw her.”

We looked at each other without speaking, silent for a long time.

Then he turned. “We’ve received intelligence that the Hurong mean to seize this shipment of provisions. We’re meeting in the command tent shortly. Come along.”

I was rather surprised. Was military intelligence like that something a mere hundred-man commander should be hearing?

Lin Shao soon gave me the answer. “Nothing to do with me. Ying Chi asked for you by name. No one objected.”

He spoke with easy familiarity, left those instructions, and went. I was left thinking.

Ying Chi was a commandant who had spent years stationed on the frontier. Unlike Lin Shao, he was a man of few words, commanding respect without ever raising his voice.

But he was the one who had promoted me, the one who had assigned me my men. When our unit destroyed a band of Hurong raiders by itself during a patrol a few days earlier, he said little but rewarded me handsomely.

Ordinarily, Lin Shao and Ying Chi barely seemed to associate. Even their soldiers sometimes clashed. Now I wondered whether it had all been for outside eyes.

For the emperor’s eyes, perhaps?

The thought cheered me. So the outwardly loyal Ying Chi was not without private intentions.

All the better. The less anyone got along with the emperor, the more I liked them.

My sister had said that, whatever the circumstances, the human heart was the greatest uncertainty.

But what lay in Ying Chi’s heart?

I soon had my answer.

In the command tent, after Ying Chi and Lin Shao assigned their tactics, a finger came down on a small red dot on the map.

“The Hurong have assembled elite troops from sixteen divisions this time,” Lin Shao said gravely. “Their rear defenses must be thin. This is one of their most important granaries. Our scouts report that supplies have been pouring into it for days.”

“A risky move,” Ying Chi said succinctly. “We propose sending a small elite force on a night raid.”

Discussion broke out around the tent.

“A good idea. But certainly dangerous…”

“Unless they’ve laid an ambush.”

“Those barbarians steal from us every day. Time we paid them back!”

“The difficulty is choosing whom to send.”

Ying Chi looked at me.

He was past thirty, but his eyes were unusually deep and weathered, as though the desert wind and sand had scoured all the spark and life from them.

Suddenly, I understood why he had asked me to attend.

It was indeed a dangerous gamble. It was also an opportunity that might never come again.

What was his relationship with Lin Shao, that he would go so far to advance me?

Thinking that, I nevertheless smiled.

The fire in the tent blazed. I went down on one knee, my voice clear. “Allow me to undertake it, sir.”

Every kind of look turned toward me. I heard only Ying Chi say, “Good.”

The matter was settled.

That night, I lifted the flap and stepped out of the tent, then stopped short.

Ying Chi was feeding a horse a handful of soybeans.

The animal did not look like a warhorse. It wore neither saddle nor bridle. Magnificent and imposing, with four white feet, it had a wild, powerful beauty.

Lin Shao’s words came back to me unbidden.

He had said Madam set her fine horse free.

I returned to my tent in silence. When I asked Lin Shao about it the next day, he looked startled, then laughed aloud. “Of course it can’t be the same horse. But they’re probably mother and son. A few years ago, the mare did bring a sick little foal back to camp. Ying Chi gradually nursed it and raised it. Never trained it. Just feeds it for the pleasure of it.”

I should not have asked. But remembering what Madam had said, I felt I had already found my answer.

Sure enough, Lin Shao’s smile faded. Then the corner of his mouth lifted. I could not tell whether his expression was bitter or resigned.

“I hadn’t wanted to tell you. But since we’ve entrusted you to Ying Chi, there’s no harm in your knowing.

“Back then, something his mother had left him fell into the sea by accident. Ying Chi searched a long time without finding it, then gave up. She spent days diving in the sea. We thought she was playing. We never knew she’d kept it in mind. At last she brought up that jade pendant, held it high, and smiled at him.

“That was the time I said my sister looked like a goddess. Ying Chi was standing beside me. He said, ‘Mm.’”