Chapter Fifteen
Three Days
The Marshal's herald walked the line at the third hour of the fourteenth morning.
He came up out of the command-pavilion with the cinnabar-and-gold standard of the Tenth Legion on a short stave and his second in lacquered scale at his left elbow, and he went, in the slow careful pace of a herald with an announcement to read, along the line of every squad in the column. The reading took most of an hour. The herald, at each squad, raised the short stave and waited for the squad to come to attention, and the squad would stand, and the herald would unroll the scroll and read.
We did not hear the reading at the southernmost squads.
We saw the standing. We saw it the way one sees a wave come up a long shore — by the slow lift of one squad after the next, head by head, plate by plate, into the upright posture of soldiers on a parade-ground at the third hour of a morning with the cold still in the marrow.
The wave came toward us.
Wei stood up from the squad-fire on the second wave's lift.
He said, "Squad Five. Up."
We stood.
I stood at the windward of Liu, in my place — her place, the place in the new ledger of the squad — with the bow across my forearm and the bamboo tube at the second rib under the under-shirt and Wei's two paper squares against my belly under the binding-cloth and the warmth at the second rib closed under nothing, this morning, because the air was already too cold for the warmth to be loose under the lamellar.
Liu, beside me, breathed out once.
He said, under his breath, "Mm."
He had a thumbprint of bad weather under his right shoulder where the outrider's arrow had taken him at the horse-camp, and the thumbprint was telling him, this morning, what the herald was going to say before he said it.
The herald came up to Squad Five.
He raised the short stave. We were at attention. The squad behind us was at attention. The squad ahead of us was at attention. He unrolled the scroll. He read.
He read in the small thin clipped court-cantor voice of a man who had been chanting scroll-text for thirty years.
He read: "By the seal of the Marshal of the Tenth Legion, and by the seal of the Cinnabar Bureau, and by the seal of the Office of Foreign Princes: the prisoner Toghrul Bekei, eldest son of the Khaghan of the Confederation, taken at the Ash Forest, will be transferred to the wagons of the Cinnabar Bureau at sunset on the seventeenth day of the present moon. At the second watch the prisoner will be loaded into the third wagon under the black canvas; at the third watch the Bureau's column will resume its march south to Changlin under separate escort. Squad rotations of the Tenth Legion will be released from prisoner-rotation at the changing of the third watch on the seventeenth day. By the seal of the Marshal."
He rolled the scroll.
He stepped one pace back.
He held the stave at the upright.
He did not look at any soldier of Squad Five.
He turned. He walked to the squad on the north side of us. He raised the stave. He unrolled the scroll.
Bald Wei said, into the small thin cold, "Squad Five. At ease."
We came to ease.
Liu, beside me, breathed out the second time.
He said, under his breath, in the same small noise, "Mm."
He did not say anything else.
Wei said, "Yansheng."
I said, "Sir."
He did not turn his head. He looked at the herald's back where the herald was at the next squad with the stave up. He said, in the small administrative voice, "First watch tonight. The orderly takes the morning bowl. You take the evening bowl. The secretary will not be in the tent. The secretary will be in the Marshal's pavilion. Yes."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "Yansheng."
"Sir."
"Three days."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He looked at the herald. He drank, from the tin cup in his hand, a swallow of the millet-water I had not seen him pour. He had been holding the cup the whole of the standing.
He said, into the cup, "There is a wagon-master on the south picket who has been hiding a small horse-string from the requisition-clerk for a week. Six animals on the lee side of the smith's wagon. The bay mare with the journey-knot is one of them. The wagon-master is a man of mine. He is not, this morning, on any ledger I have signed."
I said, "I hear."
He said, "I am not telling you anything, Yansheng. I am taking the morning air at the squad-fire."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He drank his cup.
He did not look at me.
He said, after a count, "Eat your millet, Yansheng. The cold is coming back."
I ate my millet.
I ate it the way Little Mountain had taught me, with the heat out of the bowl first, in even small mouthfuls, and Mountain across the fire ate his and pushed nothing across at me and Liu beside me carved the duck-that-was-a-horse-that-was-a-duck without looking up and Wang Erlang at the far edge of the firelight ate his with his back to me. Old Crow at the far side did not eat. Old Crow was at the picket-line. Old Crow had not come back to the fire since the moment the herald's standing had crossed the smith's wagon.
I went, after the millet, to the latrine.
I went past the latrine. I went, in the small dry ticking of the salt-pan dawn that was not yet snow, to the south line of the smith's wagon, behind the windbreak of the supply-wagons, and I sat down on my heels with my back to a wagon-wheel.
The wolf was at his place.
He was lying flat with his head between his paws and his eye on the lambing-felt at the eastern end of the squad-line, where the wolf had been told by an old man with eighteen-inch pegs to lie down for a week, and the wolf had been there for four days now. The wolf did not lift his head.
The warmth at the second rib under my under-shirt opened.
I let it open.
I held my hands palms-down on my knees and let the warmth open under the binding-cloth, and I held my chest with the back of my own left hand at the second rib, and the warmth — which was not, in any honest reading of it, mine — went one whole turn out of the closing it had been in all morning.
I said to the wolf with the chest, Three days.
The warmth moved.
He did not get up. He set his head, very slowly, on the white grass at the side away from his paws. He laid his ear flat to the ground.
He had heard me.
He was telling me back with the warmth, I hear.
I did not weep.
I held my hands. I held the warmth. I stood up.
I walked back across the trampled snow to the squad-fire.
Wang Erlang at the far edge of the firelight, with his back to me, lifted his head. He did not turn it.
He said, into the wind, "Yansheng. I am going to take the south picket at the second watch tonight. The wagon-master's horse-string is on the lee side of it. The wagon-master is going to be at the latrine for the length of a half. Do you hear me."
I said, "I hear."
He said, into the wind, "I do not like the Bureau."
He went back to his cup.
I went to the prisoner-tent at first watch.
I went with the bowl of millet and the bowl of water and a small spare strip of clean wrap the orderly had pressed into my palm at the wagon with the flat of his thumb, the way he had now done four times — once to pass a thing that was promised by a third man — and I went under the flap.
He was awake.
He was sitting forward over his good knee.
The lamp was at the second quarter. The lamp had been let down. The wax tablet of the secretary was not in the tent. The secretary was in the Marshal's pavilion, as Wei had said. The Vermillion Guard at the flap had taken his glance into the wind. The other Vermillion Guard had set the back of his hand at the inner hem.
I crossed at the six paces.
I set down the bowl of millet.
I set down the bowl of water.
I did not, this evening, sit back at the six.
I crossed to the four paces. I knelt. I sat back on my heels.
He did not look at me. I did not look at him.
We sat that way.
He did not speak.
I did not speak.
The lamp burned. The wind ticked. The wolf at the south line of the smith's wagon lay flat. The Vermillion Guard at the flap turned his face deeper into the wind. The other Vermillion Guard did not move.
We sat for a count of one hundred.
We sat for a count of two hundred.
We sat for a count of five hundred.
At the count of five hundred I stopped counting.
We sat at four paces in the lamp-light with our eyes on the felt between us, and the felt was, this evening, the thing both of us were carrying. We were not carrying the carrying. The felt was. We were watching the felt.
I held the warmth at the second rib under the back of my own left hand, and his bowl-of-the-chest opened under his lamellar at the rim of the same rib I was holding mine at, and we did not, for the length of half a watch, look at each other, and we did not, for the length of half a watch, speak.
At the changing of the half he said, in the third voice, into the felt, "I know."
He did not say what he knew.
I did not ask.
He said, into the felt, "I won't ask you to come."
I held the count of eight.
I held it longer.
I said, in the belly voice, into the felt, "You are not asking."
He said, "I am not."
I said, "You will not."
He said, "I will not."
We sat.
He said, after a count, "Wolf-girl."
I held the count of eight.
He had said the steppe-tongue word, in his own tongue, under the wind-tick of the south-east seam, very softly. He had not used the open-air word for the wolf in twelve nights. He had said Tngri-eke once, at the lamp on the first night. He had said ünegen and bürkii and er-ün debel-tür once each. He had said the three syllables of Khaghan-bürkii on the night of I did not deny. He had not said the steppe-tongue word for what I was at any watch in this tent.
He had said it now.
He had said it on the fourteenth night, three days before the wagon under the black canvas, in the bowl-of-the-chest reach across four paces of squad-felt in a tent with the lamp at the second quarter and the seam at the south-east not laced.
I held the count.
I said, in the belly voice, in the imperial — not the steppe-tongue, not the wolf-tongue, not the small low syllable in my throat under all my names — "I hear."
He waited.
He said, "There is an old kam at the eastern edge of the camp. Möngke-Dam. The Bureau has kept her alive because she carries an animal in the bowl of her chest larger than mine. She has been waiting for you. She felt, on the night of the wagons, what the wolf at the south line of the smith's wagon felt — and she has felt, every night since, what the wolf has felt — and she is very tired."
He waited.
He said, "She will not, past tonight, be able to wait."
He waited.
He said, into the felt between us, "Wolf-girl. I am not asking you to come with me to the Bureau wagon at the second watch of the seventeenth day. I am asking you to walk to the eastern edge of the camp at the third watch of tonight and find the old woman before the old woman cannot wait any more. Do you hear me."
I held the count.
I said, in the belly voice, "I hear."
He said, "I have not asked you to come with me."
I said, "You have not."
He said, "I will not."
I said, "I hear."
He said, "Good."
He waited. He said, "There is a second thing."
I held the count.
I said, "Tell me."
He said, in the third voice, into the felt, "Wolf-girl. The Marshal has sent Bureau outriders south of the Wall this morning. They left at the second watch on a fast change of horses. The orange-peel man has identified a village south of the Yellow River by a method I do not yet understand. He has sent them to bring the household to Changlin under Bureau seal — the mother, the brother. The orderly, who is a man of Wei's, will tell Wei at the changing. Wei will tell you. I am telling you first because I will not — between this watch and the wagon under the black canvas — have another watch to tell you anything. Do you hear me, wolf-girl."
I did not move.
I did not breathe.
I held the warmth at the second rib under the back of my own left hand and the warmth did not, for the count of three, move at all.
He said, "Wolf-girl. Do you hear me."
I said, in the belly voice, "I hear."
He said, "Then go to Möngke-Dam at the third watch. Then come back to me at the changing of the fourth. I will not, at the changing of the fourth, ask you what you have decided. I will not ask you whether you ride south to your mother or whether you ride east to the Iron Gates pass with me. I will not, on any watch of these three days, ask. I will not. I will be in this tent at the changing of the fourth watch with the lamp at the third quarter, and you will, or you will not, come under the flap. If you come, the lamp will be at the third quarter. If you do not come, the lamp will be at the third quarter. The lamp will be at the third quarter either way. Do you hear me, wolf-girl."
I said, in the belly voice, "I hear."
He waited.
He said, very quietly, into the felt, "I do not want you to choose between your mother and me. I want you to choose your mother. A hostage-prince is for one of two things — the closing of a chapter at his father's ordu by his being given back, or the opening of a chapter at his father's ordu by his being killed in the night. I am not being given back. I am being given to the Bureau. The Bureau, in the bowl of the chest of the orange-peel man, is the second of the two. Do you hear me, wolf-girl."
I said, "I hear."
He said, "Choose your mother."
I said, in the belly voice, in the smallest voice I had said anything in any tent in any night of the fourteen, "I hear."
He said, "Good."
He waited.
He said, in the same third voice, "Now go."
I rose.
I did not bow.
I did not gather the bowls.
I left the bowl of millet at the chain-side and I left the bowl of water at the chain-side and I left the small spare strip of clean wrap at the chain-side, because the bowl of millet was for a man who would not eat it and the bowl of water was for a man who had not drunk it on the night of the herald's morning and the strip of clean wrap was for a thigh that did not, on the fourteenth night, need a fresh dressing — and I went under the flap.
I did not look back.
The Vermillion Guard at the flap set the back of his hand against the inner hem and held it there until I had crossed the trampled grass, and the other Vermillion Guard turned his face into the wind, and the wolf at the south line of the smith's wagon, for the first time in four days, got up off his belly and walked five paces north along his line and lay down again with his ear flat to the ground in the direction not of the prisoner-tent and not of the lambing-felt but of the eastern edge of the camp where Möngke-Dam was waiting.
I did not go to the eastern edge of the camp at the changing of the second watch.
I went to the lambing-felt.
I sat on the cot.
I held my hands flat on my knees in the dark in the lamellar with the binding-cloth on and the bamboo tube against my belly and Wei's two paper squares against the bamboo tube and the warmth at the second rib closed under the back of my own left hand, and the small wet pin behind my breastbone — Wei's pin, the slip-pin, the pin that had been turning for fifteen days now — wound itself to the last turn it had to turn, and then the pin held, and the pin did not break.
I held the pin.
I held it for the length of half a watch.
At the third watch I stood up.
I went out of the lambing-felt.
I did not go east.
I did not go south.
I went, in the small dry tick of the salt-pan dawn that was not yet snow, to Bald Wei's tent at the centre of the squad-line, and I stood at the flap, and I said, in the belly voice that was not, this hour, the belly voice — that was a third belly voice, a voice I had not known until this hour I would learn to make —
"Sergeant."
He came to the flap.
He looked at me.
He looked at me, this time, fully — at my face, at my mouth, at my eyes, at the small place at the corner of my left eyelid that had begun, in the last count of the half-watch, to do the thing I had not let it do since the orchard gate.
He said, very quietly, "Daughter."
He had said the word.
He had said it as a sergeant says a word he has been holding for forty-two days, into the flap of his own tent at the third watch of a fourteenth night, with no man of his squad at any place on the squad-line within ten paces and no Vermillion Guard within thirty.
I said, in the third belly voice, "Sergeant. The Bureau outriders are riding south."
He said, "I know."
I said, "There is a woman at the eastern edge of the camp who has been waiting for me."
He said, "I know."
I said, "There is a man in a tent in three days who will be put under a black canvas."
He said, "I know."
I held the count of eight.
I said, "Sergeant. I cannot do all three."
He held the count of eight.
He said, into the wind that was not, this hour, the wind of the lambing-felt or the wind of the prisoner-tent but the wind of the centre of the squad-line in the small thin dark of the fourteenth night, "Daughter. You will not do all three."
I held the count.
He said, "Choose two."
I held the count.
I did not, in that count, know which two I would choose.
I said, in the third belly voice, into his flap, into the wind, into the air the column was breathing at the third watch on the fourteenth night with the orange-peel man asleep behind his black canvas and the Marshal asleep behind the cinnabar standard and the man chained to the centre-pole eighteen paces away with the lamp at the second quarter and the wolf at the south line of the smith's wagon up off his belly and pointed east —
"I do not know which two."
He looked at me for a long count.
He said, "Then go to the woman at the eastern edge of the camp."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "She will know which two."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He held the flap.
He said, "Daughter."
I said, "Sergeant."
He said, "When you come back from her tent, before the changing of the fourth, you will come to my flap and you will say which two."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "And the third I will carry."
He did not say which third he would carry. I did not ask. He went back into his tent. The flap fell.
I went east.
I walked along the trampled white grass past the smith's wagon and past the orderly's wagon, and the wolf at the south line got up and walked, very slowly, three paces behind me in the dark, and at the eastern edge of the camp where a small striped felt-cot had been set in the lee of a supply-wagon, I stopped.
A woman was sitting on a low folding-stool in the open beside the cot.
She was as old as the white grass.
She looked up at me, in the small grey light of the third watch, with eyes that were the colour of river-bed mud, and she said, in steppe-tongue, in a voice that was the voice of the grandmother who had whispered Arsulan over my cradle —
"Anda. You have come."
I held the count of eight.
I said, in steppe-tongue, in the third belly voice that was, this hour, a fourth — a voice I had not made in any room in any night of nineteen years —
"I have come."