Dance - Cinderella Retold

Part 5

FIVE

Jing's time came early and the house rang with her screams even as the midwife tried to quiet her. Mai's father prayed in the shrine, where he could not hear the screaming, so when a messenger arrived at the gate, it was up to Mai to meet the man.

He wore the Emperor's colours of red and gold, and the scroll case he carried on his belt blended in with his robes so completely Mai almost didn't see it until he reached for it.

She instinctively dropped into a defensive pose, thinking that he was reaching for a blade.

The man laughed. "Easy, boy. I bring a message from the Emperor. Though it is a declaration of war, it is not war on Yeong Fu, but a call for him to provide troops. Perhaps if you are lucky, he will send you."

Mai opened her mouth to tell the messenger that she was no boy, nor would her father waste her life in a war against the rebellious cities to the north, but a particularly loud scream issued from the house.

"Sounds like war is already here," the messenger commented. He thrust a scroll into her hands. "Your father might go to war just to get some peace and quiet." Laughing to himself, the man headed down the road toward the town.

Mai itched to unfasten the scroll and read the message it contained, but not even she dared to break the Emperor's seal. Instead, she carried it to her father where he knelt in the family shrine.

"What is it? Another dead daughter?" Fu asked without turning around.

Mai moistened her dry mouth. "No, Father. It is a summons from the Emperor. Calling you to war."

Fu made a disgusted sound. "No doubt throwing more lives away, trying to reclaim one of the lost cities in the north when it is too little, too late. Only a strategist like your mother could take those northern cities, but not even she could devise a way to hold them. The northerners breed so much faster than we do, and their would-be king sends them against us in greater and greater numbers. Better to broker a treaty than to besiege some northern city. The worst policy is to attack cities, as any decent general should know."

"But he is calling you to war, Father. You are the greatest general in the kingdom." Mai dropped to her knees beside her father. "If anyone can win, it is you." Mai's eyes shone with admiration as she gazed at him.

"The man who now calls himself Emperor made me retire when he foisted Jing on me. He ordered me to go home and sire sons to serve him as I served his father." Fu waved angrily in the direction of the house. "Even my stillborn sons are too smart to die in that man's service. They would rather founder in their mother's womb, and I cannot blame them. Let him take my sons, for the Emperor will not have me for this stupidity!"

A breathless maid entered the shrine, bowing deeply. "Master, young mistress. The mistress has given birth to a son!"

A live one, Mai presumed, by light of the Jia's joyful expression.

"Come, I must see this for myself," Fu said, rising. He led the way into the house, with Mai and the maid following close behind.

Jing lay in bed, a gloating smile on her face as she regarded the tiny, wrinkled baby in her arms, oblivious to the army of maids carrying out bloodied sheets and replacing the soiled linen around her.

"I have given you a son, husband," Jing said, pride dripping from her every word. She held the squirming child out for his inspection. "I have named him Yeong Fu, after his father."

Fu laughed mirthlessly. "And when the Emperor sends more troops to take Yeong Fu to war, I will offer him my son. For this baby here will grow to manhood before General Li retakes the city he lost."

Jing's eyes grew wide as she swaddled the baby tightly. "What is this?"

"The Emperor has summoned me to recruit and lead an army of reinforcements north to assist General Li's siege of Dean," Fu said.

Jing clapped a hand to her mouth. "So you are going to war? How soon?"

Fu laughed. "I am not going anywhere, woman. Did I not say I would offer the Emperor my infant son in my stead? If he'd sent the Empress herself to command the siege, it might have a better chance than the one led by her brother."

Mai stared in wonder as Jing's eyes widened further. "But you cannot disobey the Emperor!" Jing cried.

"I can, and I have. He thinks he can send me to certain death under that fool's command. If the army doesn't die of disease or starvation, the garrison of Dean will cut them down just as they did last time. The Emperor sends me so that he may blame someone else for General Li's mistakes. It will not be me!" Fu's voice rose to a roar and baby Fu began to cry. Father strode out of the room, swearing under his breath about fools and those who didn't understand the first thing about war.

Mai turned to follow him out.

"You have to convince him to change his mind," Jing said. "Mai, you must. Or we all will die."

Mai stopped, and shot a scornful glance at her stepmother. "You don't understand the first thing about war. If Father says this is foolish, then it is."

"More foolish to disobey the Emperor than to go to war," Jing insisted. "In battle, men live or die, but when the Emperor sends his troops to crush a defenceless household like this one, not a fortified city, we will be slaughtered. You may play with swords in the yard, but one girl cannot hold off an army."

For once, Jing was right. Mai could best her father in training, but not an army of highly trained troops. And she didn't want to die. "I will ask him," she said.