Hope of Earth (67 page)

I
T WAS NICE, RIDING WITH
her brother, Jes thought, because then it wasn’t so deadly dull. She craved adventure, while Ned craved intellectual challenge. Theoretically they had both, here, because there was no more dangerous region than the one where the Mongols liked to attack, and there was plenty of architectural design and construction. But in practice, all they saw was walls and towers and bleak stretches of wilderness.

She and Ned were on a routine scouting mission, making sure the defenses had not broken down or been breached. Sometimes a stone fell out of place, or a storm washed a gully under a support. She spotted such problems, and Ned considered them, and then designed superior replacements. But in the long stretches between such minor discoveries, there was nothing much to do but chat.

“So did you give Wildflower a baby yet?” she inquired brightly.

“I’m trying,” he said. “And she’s trying. But so far all the joy has been in the effort, not the success, as with marching.” She appreciated his grimace; they much preferred riding to marching, but the common soldiers had no such choice. “But what about you? You’ve been married longer than I have.”

“I don’t want a baby. That would interfere with my free life.”

“Odd how a sister thinks she can lie to a brother,” he remarked to the wind.

“All right, I lied,” she said crossly. “I want a baby. We’ve certainly tried. But it doesn’t come. If you can tell, me what’s wrong—”

“You’re lean,” he said. “Not much female flesh on you.”

“Ittai doesn’t complain. He finds what he likes readily enough.”

“Oh, you’ve got it,” he said quickly. “More than you used to. But not as generously as some.”

“I wouldn’t want to be fat. Some of those cows—”

“My point is that, in my limited observation, girls with some flesh on their bodies get babies faster. They don’t have to be fat, just reasonably female. I’m trying to get Wild-flower to eat more, but she’s young.”

Jes ran the women she knew through her mind. Ned was right; the plump ones had the children. Could the secret be that simple?

Meanwhile her eyes were constantly surveying the wall they paralleled, as were Ned’s. “Oops,” she murmured, reining in her horse.

“Mongols!” he exclaimed, keeping his voice low. “They’ve broken through.”

“That’s not hard to do, because we haven’t yet completed the extension of the wall,” she said. “I don’t see a break, but there’s no doubt they’re through.”

“Cover me while I get an estimate,” he said, dismounting.

She remained on her steed, keeping trees between it and the Mongol force, while Ned crept closer afoot. She unslung her bow and nocked an arrow. She would shoot any Mongol who came after Ned. But she hoped he would not be spied, because outrunning Mongols was chancy at best, even with a head start and familiarity with the terrain.

Ned was soon back. “Too many to count,” he said. “They are here in force. Full-scale alert.”

Jes nodded. They guided their horses quietly back the way they had come, until well enough clear to be able to risk the sound of galloping. Then they moved at full speed west, toward the nearest signal tower.

“Full alert!” Jes called as they approached. “Mongols through the wall!”

“How many?” the guard captain asked as his men blew up the signal fire.

“We couldn’t count,” Ned said. “But by their organization, I’d guess at least 10,000. This is no skirmish squad.”

The men threw damp leaves on the fire, and a big cloud of smoke went up. Unfortunately, the wind was wrong, and the cloud blew toward the Mongols. “This is mischief,” Jes muttered.

“Our men will spy it,” the captain said.

“But the Mongols will spy it first,” she said. “They’re not idiots. We’d better carry the message directly.”

“Too late to call back the smoke,” Ned said. “In any event, the signal system will far outpace any riders.”

“But General Weng will want more detailed information than the signals can transmit, and with the Mongols alerted, there won’t be much time to provide it.”

“So we’d better hurry,” he agreed.

They set out again, moving at the maximum sustainable pace for their horses. Probably the Mongols would not be in pursuit, because they would fear an ambush. But the Mongols would certainly be ready.

As they rode, Jes thought about the Mongols. Ned’s wife was a Mongol princess, but she was loyal to Ned and the family. Ned had at one time worked for the Mongol prince, but that had ended badly. Their experience with Mongols helped them here. Indeed, General Weng had hoped to use Ned as an emissary to reestablish trade that would benefit both the Mongols and the empire, and defuse hostilities. But the eunuchs who ran the empire distrusted the Mongols, thinking they would only spy and cause trouble if allowed into the country, so that sensible option was closed. Thus the far more expensive and dangerous option of military defense was the only feasible alternative. But Weng’s massive and necessary wall extension project had been under-funded from the start, delaying and weakening it. It was too bad. Now they were about to suffer, again, the consequence of the empire’s multiple follies.

The horses were lathered despite the cold March air, but they made it to a larger fort by dusk. The commander assured them that the message had already been relayed, and that the general would be expecting them. They pinpointed the location of the enemy on the commander’s tactical map so that he could prepare more specifically. Now Jes and Ned could relax, briefly, and get some needed rest. They were given supper and bedding for the night.

“Why couldn’t you have been Wildflower?” Ned complained as they settled down under a joint blanket.

“Same reason you couldn’t be Ittai,” she returned archly.

They snuggled close together, sharing warmth, as they had done from childhood. They had always been best friends as well as closest siblings. They didn’t mind seeing each other naked, and they shared and kept each other’s secrets. On occasion they had problems with their spouses, which they could discuss with each other and ameliorate. When Ned was hurt because Wildflower declined love one night, Jes reminded him about the female cycle. “Cramps are bad enough, without that.” When Jes was furious because Ittai didn’t remember the date of their first meeting, Ned told her that he remembered when Lin brought Wildflower home, but he couldn’t tell the date of the month that had happened. “We men don’t mean any harm. It’s just not the way our minds work,” he explained, and she realized it was so.

The next day they rode the rest of the way to the main camp, where General Weng was hastily assembling his forces. They were ushered immediately to him to make their report.

“They seem to have circled the end of the wall,” Ned said. He did the talking, being the man. “Now they are coming this way, in force.”

“Damn those empire bureaucrats!” Weng swore. “If they hadn’t cut our funds, we would have had that wall complete by this time.” He was right, of course. Sam and Dirk were out of work at the moment because the money to pay the wall builders had run out. Fortunately they could also fight, or work on the farm. “How strong are they?”

“I didn’t see their full force, only a contingent. But the nature of their formation is suggestive of a full-scale invasion.” He was being cautious, but he would not have said that much without being almost certain that there was indeed a full army following the Mongol vanguard.

“Go secure your premises and report to Hsan-fu.” Weng turned away, already barking orders at lesser officers.

They left. The general was nothing if not efficient.

Another hour brought them to the farm, which was by the Nan-yang River near the Hsan-fu fortress. It wasn’t much, and this was the fallow season, but Flo was doing her best to instill some fertility in the soil. They were working to divert some of the river water to flow to the farm for irrigation. Sam and Dirk had dug a contour channel most of the way to the garden. But that work had to stop during this crisis.

They hastily closed down their operations and took their valuable horses and supplies to the fortress. Hsan-fu was large and well situated, guarding a pass through the hills. The Mongols would have to take it to secure their route; otherwise they would be vulnerable to harassment from their rear. Despite this certainty of attack, it was the safest place to be, because the countryside would be governed by the Mongol horsemen. Once sure of the safety of the others, Sam and Dirk armed themselves and went to report to their combat units.

By nightfall they were safely in the fortress, crowded into their makeshift temporary billets along with the other farming families of the region. As a general rule, the farmers did not mix with the troops, because the officers considered themselves above the farmers, and the prisoner conscripts were apt to be rough and uncouth. That was one reason the farmers were being given shelter within the fortress: the military discipline kept the troops from molesting them. Many soldiers were also farmers, on the military farms, but these were often unsuccessful, because the soldiers lacked the desire, patience, and aptitude to make the soil productive. Their own family was unusual in its mix, with warriors, designers, and builders all part of it. But that was because they had made it a point to keep the family together, never allowing it to fragment. It traveled as a unit, finding strength in its internal variety. Many Chinese families were unified through the generations, but their own mixture of classes was remarkable.

Jes found herself seated beside her younger sister Lin as they ate their gruel. Lin was fifteen, and blossoming into by far the loveliest member of the family. Ned’s Mongol wife Wildflower was somewhat better developed in the torso, and had lustrous black hair, and Sam’s wife Snow was much better endowed, but Lin had a youthful delicacy of face and feature that made men and women alike pause. She ran errands among the troops without trouble, because men were inclined to protect her rather than molest her, and for any man who might feel otherwise, there were several who would come quickly to her rescue if any hint of a need arose.

But Lin was plainly unhappy at the moment. She was silent, and her eyes were somewhat puffy; she had been crying.

Jes did not look at her directly. “I don’t wish to pry,” she murmured.

“It’s Li,” Lin said, sniffling.

Jes sorted through her memories. Li was a neighboring youth of relatively good family, husky and handsome. Evidently there was a romance in the offing. “Li,” she agreed.

“He saw my hand.”

That said it all. Jes freed a hand and put her arm around Lin’s shoulders. The girl turned into her bosom and quietly sobbed.

Lin was beautiful, but that six-fingered left hand might as well have been a third eye, considering the effect it had on the superstitious. She usually wore a mittenlike glove on that hand, and in winter that was easily justified. But it was hard to hold hands with a boy without evoking an unkind reaction. The members of the family were used to it, and thought nothing of it; all Lin’s fingers were functional, and she could work cloth quite well. Yet outside the family—

Then Jes had a notion. “There are men who are not handsome, yet who are worthwhile,” she murmured. “Look at Sam. Look at Dirk.”

“Look at Ittai,” Lin said, a glint of humor interrupting her misery.

“All right. My husband’s not young or handsome, but his wealth makes our lives halfway comfortable, and he’s certainly a good man. Suppose you considered someone like that?”

“Oh I wouldn’t want to take Ittai from you.” The mood was definitely lifting, in the rapid way possible to youth.

Jes closed her hand and gave Lin a light punch on the shoulder. “Thank you for that favor, Sister dear. You know what I mean. Suppose there were a good man, who had some fault not of the mind or personality, but of the body, that made other girls reject him? He would be like you, in that respect. You would know exactly how he felt.”

“Yes, I would,” Lin agreed, wonderingly. “I never thought of that before.”

“He might be a future Sam, or Dirk, or Ittai. Or Ned. You need to learn to see beyond the superficial.”

“I’ll try,” Lin agreed. Then she disengaged and ate her gruel with more gusto. But she glanced back at Jes, mischievously. “You need to have a baby.”

Jes was careful in her reaction. “Why?”

“Because then maybe you’d have enough bosom to cry into, as Flo does.”

Jes laughed. “I’ll try.”

Next morning Weng’s troops massed outside the fortress, bracing for the onslaught of the Mongols. The incursion had happened so suddenly that the Chinese force still was not complete or fully organized. The signal system had allowed Weng to track the Mongols’ progress into Chinese territory, but they were moving so swiftly that the scattered defensive forces had not had time to gather. The Mongols, inveterately clever warriors, had surely planned it that way, quietly slipping through and massing until discovered. The Mongols understood the signal system perfectly; in fact they destroyed the towers at every opportunity. It was a sign of its effectiveness that the clever enemy had not been able to nullify it more than partially.

Sam and Dirk marched, but neither Ned nor Jes was allowed to join the main army. “You are too competent to risk in the field,” Weng had said gruffly. “I need your designs for construction.” That was Ned. “And an accurate bow to defend the fortress.” Jes. The general knew her nature, but saved her face by not mentioning it. She suspected that her husband had made a deal with him, to keep her out of mischief. Ittai was of course too old for combat. That was a private comfort. But not too old for command, so he was in charge of one of the outlying forts.

However, the fortress did need defending, and she was good with the bow, so she didn’t object. She reported to the wall foreman, who assigned her to the crew defending the north gate. The packed earth ramparts had been enclosed by stone and topped by small towers, just as in the walls themselves, and seemed formidable enough. But Jes had seen Mongol attacks before, and took nothing for granted. With luck, Altan Khan had not brought siege equipment along ‘this time, and would not make a really determined effort. Not while being harassed by Weng’s army. Otherwise the fort could be in real trouble, because the Mongols knew how to take down a wall by pulling out a few stones and mining out the dirt that was its core. The point was to prevent the Mongols from ever having the chance to do that.