Despite everything, we did.
I awoke in the small hours of the morning to a faint scratching at the door and opened it to find Bao looking oddly apologetic, a pair of shears in his hand. In the primary chamber of the farmstead, the transformation of the men of our company into Dharma monks had begun. Already, they had donned the loose, undyed jackets and trousers of a travelling order. Now they turned their attention to their hair. I saw Ten Tigers Dai wince with visible dismay as his braid of glossy black hair was severed at a single chop.
"It's Master Lo," Bao said sheepishly. "I couldn't bring myself to do it. Will you?"
I glanced at our mentor. "Master?"
He sat serenely in his coarse, homespun clothing. "Bao is being foolish. Appearance is no measure of a man. I would be pleased if you would do the honors, Moirin."
"Aye, Master." It did feel like a kind of sacrilege. I knelt behind him, taking his tidy braid of silver-white hair in one hand, the shears in the other. Swallowing hard, I snipped it off.
Master Lo chuckled. "I feel strangely liberated."
I cut his hair as close as I could with the shears, trimmed away his elegant white beard, averting my gaze as I did so. He bore it patiently. Bao handed me a jar of salve and a keen-edged razor with a lacquered handle. Carefully and fearfully, I shaved Master Lo's head and chin until he was as bald as an egg.
When it was done, he looked immeasurably different. The same gentle wisdom shone in his dark eyes, but at a glance, I would never have recognized him.
"My turn." Bao sat cross-legged before me.
I ran one hand over his thick, unruly mane, relishing the crisp texture of it. "Why do you wear it short?" I asked, curious. "Is it another piece of your supposed humility?"
He shook his head. "Better for fighting. You can grab a man by his braid, yank him down. It's stupid for a fighter to have long hair."
I set to work with the shears. "I see. Well, you'll have none at all soon enough." Bao shrugged, and I nearly cut him. "Hold still!"
By the time I had finished shaving Bao's head, the princess had awakened and emerged from the bedchamber of her own accord, clad in the modest green robes of Lady Chan Song, a strip of plain linen bound over her eyes. Her spine was taut and her head turned from side to side, blindly seeking. "Moirin?"
I stood. "Here, my lady. We do but complete the transformation of your escort into monks on the Path of Dharma, shaven heads and all."
She eased, favoring me with a rare smile. "How do they look?"
I smiled in reply. "Surprisingly handsome."
At least in Bao's case, it was true. He had a nicely shaped skull, neat ears pinned close to his head. The absence of hair set off his high, wide cheekbones and his sculpted jawline. If some of the others were not so fortunate, I held my tongue.
"Master Lo Feng." Snow Tiger inclined her head in his general direction. "Is there an altar as I requested?"
"Yes, of course, my lady." Master Lo rose smoothly, guiding her. A small, gilded statue of Sakyamuni had been placed in a niche in the wall, an even smaller statue of the goddess Guanyin beside him. "Would you offer a prayer?"
"I would."
With his assistance, the princess lit a taper of incense and placed it in the brazier. Unaided, she knelt and bowed three times, pressing her brow to the floorboards, hands palm-upward in graceful supplication.
A shiver ran over my skin.
One by one, the others followed. The stick-fighters, Bao, Master Lo, all knelt without reservation. I was the last.
I knelt, gazing upward.
The statues looked inward.
"Forgive me," I whispered in Alban, in my mother tongue. "I am a stranger here, and foreign to your worship. I am a child of the Maghuin Dhonn. But I am doing the best that I may to aid those in need. I beg you to have compassion and guide us on this journey."
There was no answer.
They hear you, the dragon murmured.
"Aye?"
His presence coiled around me, warm and embracing. Always, he whispered. The gods do not always answer, but they are always listening.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
We set out on the road ere dawn. It was damp and chilly, the eastern sky a dull grey. Snow Tiger and I rode in the rustic carriage, Kang once more in the driver's perch. Master Lo and the others walked on either side of the carriage, ghostly figures in the predawn darkness. The fighters' staves had been adorned with banners from the fictitious House of Chan. Beyond that, they carried only begging bowls.
Beside me, the princess shivered.
"Are you cold, my lady?" I tucked a woolen blanket more firmly around her.
"No." Her voice was low. "It is only that I mislike leaving thusly." She bowed her head, fidgeting with the sword she held across her lap. "It is dishonorable."
I thought about my reply. "Those men have staked their honor on this venture, my lady." I nodded out the window at Tortoise and Dai. "Honor most of them never knew they possessed. Bao gave them a chance to be heroes and they seized it. You cannot see it, but their eyes shine when they look at you. For the first time in their lives, they attempt something noble and good. They are on a mission to rescue a princess and a dragon. Would you strip that honor from them?"
Her fingers drummed on the lacquered scabbard. She angled her veiled head in my direction. "You do know that were circumstances otherwise, I could have you beaten for speaking to me thusly?" she inquired in a mild tone.
I smiled, sensing no genuine malice in her threat. "Were circumstances otherwise, I would not be here," I said calmly. "Which I think you know full well. And that does not make my words any less true."
One corner of her mouth lifted. "Fairly spoken, my necessary inconvenience. I will seek to be worthy of the honor yonder thugs accord me, as well as the venerable Lo Feng and his apprentice."
"Good." I hesitated, lowering my voice. "My lady….. is it true that Master Lo is a hundred and seventy years old?"
Snow Tiger shook her head. "I cannot say. But my father has known him since he was a boy, and he. says Lo Feng was ancient even then."
"I wonder how old Black Sleeve is," I mused. "He had to have been born a very long time ago if his mother died of old age."
"True." She shuddered. "For all that I have pondered the matter, I cannot grasp why a man would do such a thing. Why would he set such terrible events in motion?"
"I don't know," I said slowly, thinking of Raphael de Mereliot. "Some losses cut deep and the wound never heals. He must have loved his mother very much to blame his father for her death. And ambition can be a dreadful force, warping all it touches."
"Like Lord Jiang." Yes.
The princess was silent and I held my tongue, knowing she was thinking once more of her wedding night. I had no words to assuage the memory of that blood-soaked horror. "I must believe as you do that there is a greater purpose in this," she said presently. "You are right, to believe elsewise is to invite madness." Her slender fingers caressed the scabbard in her lap. "But there is vengeance, too. I must confess, it would please me very greatly to send Lord Jiang Quan to his death for sacrificing his son to such a fate. Black Sleeve, too."
I didn't doubt her; nor could I blame her. Still, something in her implacable tone made my blood run cold, reminding me that she had torn a man apart with her bare hands.
The dragon stirred.I would never harm you.
"I frightened you." Snow Tiger turned her veiled face toward me. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to. Tell me….. tell me something pleasant. Tell me….." She paused, rethinking her choice. "Perhaps it would be best not to speak of your fondness for Master Lo Feng's apprentice."
I eyed her. "I think that's wise, my lady."
Beneath the edge of her veil, she smiled. "Tell me more about your licentious D'Angelines. Tell me about this Queen you served. You said she was very beautiful?"
"Oh, aye." I smiled, too. "You might not think so. It is a different kind of beauty than one finds in Ch'in."
"Like you?"
"No." I shook my head. "Jehanne was fair, very fair. Not only her skin, which was as white as milk, but her hair, too. It was the palest hue of gold I'd ever seen. Strong-willed as she was, she looked so very fragile and lovely. And her eyes were blue-grey, like….. There is a flower, but I don't know its name in your tongue. Only….. only it wasn't the color, it was the way they shone when she was glad. Like stars."
"Enough to make all the birds in the sky sing at once?" She sounded amused.
I flushed. "You did ask, my lady. I take no comfort in being mocked. Strange though it may seem to you, I did love her very much. And in her own way, my lady Jehanne showed me great kindness."
"I did not intend mockery." Her head tilted, considering. "Nor have I shown you much kindness, have I?"
"Not always," I murmured. "But you have more pressing matters at hand."
"Yes." Snow Tiger paused. Behind her veil, it seemed as though she were frowning in thought. "That does not make it just. I think….. I think perhaps you are doing your best to be a friend to me, Moirin. If I do not always accept it with grace, it is because I have never had a friend before," she said simply. "Servants, tutors, companions at arms, yes. Never a friend."
My eyes stung. There was no trace of self-pity in her words, but there was an unspoken ache of loneliness. "I will try to be a worthy one if you let me, my lady."
Whatever the princess meant to say was drowned out by the sound of approaching hoofbeats, riders coming hard and swift on the road behind us. Her hand closed on my upper arm, fingertips digging in hard enough to bruise.
I glanced out the window.
Riders—Imperial riders.
Two of them raced past our company, not even deigning to give it a second glance. They were not looking for monks. The third hesitated, drawing rein. His impatient mount danced, the Imperial banner affixed to the back of his saddle fluttering. I took a deep breath, yearning to summon the twilight. Suddenly, our meager disguises seemed foolish and inadequate. All he had to do was bid us lift our veils. My green eyes and the half-D'Angeline cast of my features would give me away in an instant, and Snow Tiger….. ah, gods. I could sense the dragon within her beginning to panic at the prospect. I feared it would end in blood, a great deal of it.
It seemed impossible that he would not suspect us.
And yet he didn't.
The rider's gaze skated over us, quickly dismissing the contents of the carriage. Two veiled country women in modest attire, one clutching the other. It was quite simply beyond his ability to imagine that the daughter of the Son of Heaven would ever lower herself to travel thusly.
"Honored Brother!" he shouted at Master Lo. "Have you heard the news? His Celestial Majesty's daughter has vanished. Have you seen aught to report?"
"I have not." Master Lo raised his begging bowl with serene composure. "Alms for a pilgrim's blessing?"
Coins rattled into his bowl. "Wish us luck!"
Master Lo bowed. "Of course."
The rider heeled his mount and raced onward. The dragon's alarm ceased to rise. Snow Tiger released her death-grip on my arm. I rubbed it, wincing. "He looked right past us, didn't he?" she marveled. "We were right here, and he looked right past us!"
"So he did," I agreed, dizzy with relief.
"How very curious," she said thoughtfully. "I was not entirely convinced this plan of yours would work. But not expecting to see me thus, the courier was quite thoroughly incapable of doing so. It is a lesson to remember. If I am ever to serve….." Her voice trailed off.
"Has Ch'in ever been ruled by a woman?" I asked.
"Oh, yes." It brought her faint smile back. "Yes—and no. There have been a number of powerful women who have risen to rule in deed, if not in name. But until my father, no Emperor has ever dared appoint a female child his heir."
"It is a brave and honorable thing his Celestial Majesty does," I offered.
The princess' head tilted into her considering pose. "There is one benefit to your frequent insolence," she commented. "When you tell me something I wish to hear, I have no doubt that you are speaking your mind in truth. Perhaps that is a hallmark of friendship I must learn to value."
I laughed.
Snow Tiger leaned against the backrest of the carriage, and I had the sense that she had closed her eyes behind her thick veil. "Tell me another story, Moirin. Tell me tales of your shapeshifting bear folk and your scandalous D'Angelines."
Clearing my throat, I obliged.
In hushed tones, I told her tales my mother had told me when I was a child, tales of how the Maghuin Dhonn crossed the world when it was covered with ice, claiming fair Alba for our own. I told her how we had welcomed and taught the folk that had arrived after us, and how they had repaid our kindness with tribute, until the Tiberians came with hard steel, stone roads, and foreign diseases. I told her the tale of the mighty magician Donnchadh, who had taken on the shape of the Great Bear Herself and suffered himself to be tormented for sport at the hands of invaders, until he burst loose his chains in the arena and climbed the stands to slay the Tiberian governor.
She liked that story.
I told her the most glorious and scandalous tale of Terre d'Ange that I knew, the tale of Phedre no Delaunay de Montreve, the courtesan-spy who rose from obscurity to save her nation from invasion and insurrection, and the warrior-priest Joscelin Verreuil who was her companion.