Dance: Cinderella Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale series Book 3) Page 7

  No, Heng should be in the capital, carrying his letter to the Emperor. The one about Mao’s brilliance. Mao who had nearly died through General Li’s bungled strategy. Ah, but it wasn’t the General’s strategy at all, but Mao’s. No wonder the fool had made a mess of things. The Emperor needed more men like Mao, who were worth ten of General Li.

  Yi swayed a little on his feet as he climbed the hill to the General’s hut, but he put that down to not eating much since he'd left the city. Lack of food made a man weak. He would send for something directly, once he found the General.

  The hut seemed unusually dark inside, but Yi stepped inside anyway, taking a moment to grab the doorframe as a strange bout of dizziness hit. "General Li!" he shouted.

  "There he is now," General Li said. "The Emperor is welcome to him."

  Yi blinked. The General sat at his table, holding an open scroll in his hands. Heng looked haggard, but relieved. "Did you deliver my message to the Emperor?" Yi demanded.

  Heng nodded. "He sent me back with his reply." He waved at Li's scroll.

  Yi saw red. "First you try to get me killed, and now you're reading my personal letters from the Emperor? Have you no honour at all?" he roared.

  General Li rose, his eyes flashing. "I am victorious. The city surrendered to me. Victory is mine, and you are to be sent home to the Emperor. Immediately."

  Yi snorted. "The victory is Mao's, not yours. It was his strategy. And the Emperor knows it."

  Li shrugged. "No one has seen the boy since he went into the city. An unfortunate casualty of war."

  Yi's fury knew no bounds. "It wasn't me you tried to kill. It was Mao. A better man, and a better general than you will ever be. You failed, Uncle. Mao lives. And he will return to the capital with me, where I will tell my father every mistake and delay in this campaign has been your doing, and without Mao, we would still be sitting here, doing nothing!" Yi couldn't seem to catch his breath. The room was growing dark again and he couldn't stop it.

  Yi swayed, unable to steady himself. Before Heng could catch him, Yi toppled forward across the desk into oblivion.

  Twenty-Three

  Mai jerked awake, convinced her hands were afire. A quick glance told her this was not the case. In fact, her hands were bound in bandages and she was lying in a bed that also wasn't burning.

  She shouldn't be in bed. Yi had been.

  But the bed beside her was empty.

  Mai jumped to her feet. "Where is he?" she demanded.

  A healer she didn't recognise hurried toward her, making hushing sounds. "Where is who?"

  Mai pointed a shaking figure at the empty bed. "Prince Yi, the Prince of Swords. He was injured in the battle."

  "The Prince of Swords, lie in a soot-smeared bed, beside a boy so covered in ash and cinders you look like one of the kitchen drudges?" The healer laughed. "The prince would not be in a tent with the common soldiers. He will be in his own tent, or with the General. But the Prince of Swords cannot have been defeated. The news would be all over the camp by now if the Emperor's favourite son was injured, and all I have heard is about the General's victory over Dean. The city surrendered before the cooks rang the breakfast gong."

  The battle had raged all night? How had she slept through it?

  Realisation dawned. "What was in the tea I drank? Was it a sleeping draught?"

  The healer shrugged. "I gave you nothing, so I do not know. But a sleeping patient is easier to treat than one who is awake, so we help many men to sleep."

  "I shall not stay here a moment longer. I must find the prince," Mai said. Whatever the healer had heard, she knew otherwise. Yi was injured, and if he had tried to rejoin the battle in his condition…

  She checked their tent first, but it was cold and deserted. No one had slept there last night. The practice ground was deserted, too, so she climbed the rise to the General's house.

  In the doorway, she nearly bumped straight into the healer she remembered from last night.

  "You!" she exclaimed. "You drugged me, when you said you were giving me a pain draught. What did you do with Prince Yi?"

  "It was a pain draught," the man said, drawing himself up. "It also relaxes a patient, so that many fall asleep. And the prince left my care, only to collapse in the General's arms. I have done what I can for him here, as he should not be moved." He glared at Mai as though she had suggested moving him.

  "Will he be all right?" Mai demanded.

  "He will live," the healer replied. "I shall return later, if the prince's condition changes. Until then, I have a hospital full of injured men to see to." He marched off down the hill.

  Mai slipped inside. She found Yi in what looked like the General's own bedchamber, lying facedown on the bed. The General was nowhere to be seen.

  "Yi, can you hear me?" she asked, her voice shaking more than she liked.

  "What, did I finally manage to beat you, so you won't call me Rooster any more?" Yi turned his head and smiled weakly.

  Mai breathed a sigh of relief. He could not be too badly hurt if he could make jokes. "The sun will rise in the west before you best me in a fight, Rooster. So much for watching each other's backs in the city. I had to carry you out on mine while you slept. What would the soldiers say if they knew their hero, the Prince of Swords, slept through the best part of the battle?"

  "You carried me out?" Yi stared at her. "From what the healers tell me, I owe you my life. They say my armour caught fire, and if you hadn't stripped it off me, I would have burned, too. You are the hero of this battle, Mao, not me."

  Mai didn't know what to say. She was no hero. She had not even fought in the battle. Much like Yi, she'd slept through it.

  Yi continued, "And when we return to the capital, I will tell the Emperor so. He will give you a place at court, I am sure of it, and command you to marry, for great men like you should have sons to serve the Emperor when you go to join your ancestors." He winced. "The Emperor says I must travel to the capital immediately. But the healers tell me to wait, for I cannot ride like this. Not for a few days, at least. It feels like someone tried to flay me alive. I will be so scarred now, no woman will swoon over me. Even my bride will insist I bed her in the dark, so she doesn't have to see such scars."

  "That's not true. You are still a prince, and I am certain every woman in the kingdom would be honoured to be chosen by a hero who is also the Emperor's favourite son." Bitterness welled up in Mai's belly as she said those words, for they incinerated whatever hopes she might have had, if only for a moment. But a prince – likely to be chosen as the Emperor's heir – was so far above her she would not even be allowed to sweep the floors in his bedchamber, let alone share his bed. Sharing his tent here was more than she deserved. Like the healer had said, once she returned home, she was destined to be no better than a kitchen drudge in her father's house, for if she never married, she would never be the mistress of any home at all. If only she never had to go home.

  Yi grasped her hand. Despite the bandages, Mai felt his firm grip. "Promise me you will come to the capital, Mao," Yi said. "So that if I must do as the Emperor commands and choose a bride, I will have your sage advice to guide me and lift my spirits should things go wrong. I can face an enemy army with no fear, but an army of women? I will need a hero like you by my side to bolster my courage."

  Mai laughed. "A rooster who runs away from a flock of hens? I wouldn't miss such a sight for all the riches in the world. I will come to the capital with you."

  And watch him choose a bride, while her heart died a little inside. She had come to Dean to fight in a war. The war was won, but Mai feared she might have lost something far more important – her heart, hopelessly in love with Prince Yi.

  Twenty-Four

  "The Prince of Swords will not ride home in a litter," Yi grumbled when he saw the conveyance. "They are for invalids and ladies, not warriors."

  Mai privately agreed, but it would not do to tell him so. "Officially, your great friend Yeong Mao, who was grievously wounded in t
he battle, will ride in the litter. The Prince of Swords will ride alongside it as his honour guard, and occasionally within to share his wit and wisdom with the poor invalid."

  Yi dropped his voice so low only Mai could hear it. "I still cannot ride. In another few days, perhaps…"

  A few days would turn into a week, and Mai knew it would be many weeks before Yi fully recovered. She had seen his bloodied back when Heng and the healers had changed his bandages that very morning. The Emperor demanded his son return home, and the Emperor must be obeyed. Especially when the General wanted Mai dead for daring to win the war, and had begun to look at Yi in the same way. Mai had found the perfect solution to prevent them both from being assassinated.

  Mai sighed. "Heng will dress me in your armour, and I will ride like a rooster for as long as I need to, puffing and preening until all the men know it is you who is astride that horse. Then, when we are far enough away from camp, I will join you in the litter and do my best to stop you from getting bored."

  Yi managed a faint smile. "We could take some dancing girls and musicians."

  Mai felt a pang of homesickness as she remembered her sisters practicing dancing and music day and night, determined to perform well enough to catch the eye of a prince.

  "And ruin the illusion? It is less than two days' journey to the capital – you said so yourself. If you truly grow bored, I will…recite poetry for you." Mai managed a wicked grin. "One of the boys on the watchtower near the gate has penned quite a pretty one. He sent you a copy to take with you to the Emperor."

  Mai watched Yi try to hide how much he hated poetry. "Must I hear it?"

  "If the Emperor loves poetry as much as you say, I am sure it will be quite the favourite at court. It describes how you and the General rode side by side, leading the charge into the city, as everyone bowed low before you."

  "He's too much of a coward to do any such thing," Yi declared. "Are you sure we can't have some musicians?"

  Mai sighed. "Only if you want them to sing about how the Prince of Swords had to be carried home by litter after the battle, instead of riding proudly on his horse."

  Yi managed a wry smile. "I think you care about my honour even more than I do, Mao. One day, when my head is not so befuddled with healing potions, remind me to thank you."

  Between Heng and Mai, Yi drank enough healing potions to keep him sleeping soundly for most of the journey back to the capital, to Mai's considerable relief. No musicians needed.

  As they approached the palace, Mai grew quiet, glad Yi's helmet hid her face and, more importantly, her gaping mouth. If a giant had taken her father's house, all the houses in the village, and every other noble's house in the kingdom, and piled them up harmoniously into one enormous structure, it still wouldn't convey the sheer magnitude of the Emperor's palace. It made even the city of Dean look tiny.

  More than ever, Mai truly believed she did not belong here at court. Her stepmother had been right.

  If it weren't for Yi, she would have left the moment he was safely home, but as he was lifted from the litter, he seized her arm and refused to let go. "You must stay with me in my apartments. My uncle has spies in court who might yet try to kill you. You will be safe with me."

  Privately, Mai thought she would be safer without Yi, for she was more than a match for him, and if he was the best swordsman in the kingdom…no one else would even get close. Safer than even Yi believed. So she followed her heart and the prince inside the maze that was the imperial palace.

  Twenty-Five

  Though impatience ate at him, Yi waited until Heng had installed Mao in the spacious sleeping chamber beside his own before he shared his joke.

  "Do you like your room?" Yi asked.

  Mao nodded and thanked him.

  "Just don't take any clothes from the chests in there. It belongs to my mistress," Yi told him with a grin.

  Mao's jaw dropped. "Where will your mistress sleep while I am here?"

  Yi was laughing too hard to answer, so Heng did it for him. "The prince has no mistress. Anything in that room belonged the mistress of the man who had this apartment before the prince. The Emperor has many guest apartments where you might have slept, but the prince insists you stay here, in a room which cannot be reached without crossing his chambers first."

  Mao nodded as if he understood. "So I am to be kept hidden here?" he asked.

  "Of course not. You are free to move about the palace as you wish, as my guest," Yi said. "But a man must sleep."

  "And what do I tell anyone who asks who I am?" Mao asked. "I can hardly say I am your mistress."

  Both Yi and Heng laughed at that. Mao might not be a large man, but he was no beauty. Nor did he have the respectful demeanour of one of the court women. Mao might mock Yi's pride, but his was no less, Yi knew. And why not? Mao had much to be proud of.

  "Tell them the truth. That you are Yeong Mao, the hero of the siege of Dean, and the Prince of Swords' closest friend." Yi smiled at Mao's blush. He was no longer a boy, but a man, yet he still blushed like a maiden.

  "If I tell them the whole truth, that I am the friend of a rooster who I beat daily in every bout we fight, no one will believe me," Mao said.

  "That is because all court men are roosters by your reckoning, and they won't know which one you mean," Yi replied. He wanted to laugh, but he knew all too well how true it was. "Keep your sword on you at all times, and be on your guard. They will be no match for you. After all, I, the best swordsman there is, am no match for you."

  Mao smiled sadly, as though he wished things were different.

  One day, Yi promised himself. When he was healed and could seek out Mao's father to train him. Then they would meet on the training ground as equals, and Mao would truly test his skill.

  One day soon.

  Twenty-Six

  Mai need not have worried. In her ordinary clothing, no one paid her much notice at all. Meals were served in the prince's quarters, and at those times she joined him, but the rest of the day was her own to do with as she wished. At first, she explored the palace, but she was terrified of wandering into the court or some place a minor country noble did not belong. For all Yi's talk of her being a hero, she didn't feel like much at all.

  What she wanted most was a chance to rebalance herself, to train in the martial dances her father had taught her, but she wasn't sure which of the many courtyards and gardens in the palace would be appropriate.

  Finally, she asked Heng, who directed her to the training yard Yi usually used. When she stepped into the battleground of straw practice dummies and targets, she understood why he fought as he did. Yi had never truly trained against a worthy opponent here. Neither would she, but she did not need to. Simply performing the exercises would be enough for now.

  She moved through the martial dance with her eyes closed, imagining herself home with her father. Oh, but she missed him, and her sisters. She even missed Jing, for all her complaints and commands, for they were her family. They were home. And she was…here, a tiny, insignificant bug who did not belong in the behemoth that was the imperial palace.

  But she did not belong at home, either. Her father had Jing to take care of him. If she returned, he would only try to find her some sort of husband. A man who wouldn't care about the size of her feet. But she could never love him, for Yi already held her heart, and he would never know, for Mai could never tell him.

  Mai kicked out at a practice dummy, and was gratified to see its head fall off and roll away. She trotted across the sand to retrieve the head, but what she found diminished her pride considerably. The straw that filled the sacking head was so old and rotten it had nearly disintegrated. A puff of wind might have carried it away, if Mai's foot had not done so.

  This was Yi's favourite place to train, she reminded herself. No one had used any of this since he went to war. He would not thank her for destroying the place.

  Now she felt less balanced than ever. So much for training helping her.

  With a sigh of resi
gnation, Mai returned to the prince's apartments. The chime of the palace's water clock – a wonder that took some getting used to – signalled the quarter hour. She must have been too engrossed in her training to miss the full complement of gongs and bells and the general cacophony that occurred to mark the hour. Or perhaps it was not audible in the prince's training yard – yet another reason to spend more time there.

  She heard the low murmur of voices as she entered Yi's apartments, coming from his bedchamber. Not wanting to interrupt, she edged toward her own rooms to wash and change into fresh clothes for the day. She might look like a man, but she had no intention of smelling like one.

  A long time passed, but Yi did not call her name. Curiosity got the better of her, so she left her room to try to discover who his visitor was.

  "He is a fiercer warrior than you. I can see why you like his company," a male voice said. "In the practice yard just now, I saw him decapitating a practice dummy like you used to do. Only he didn't use a sword."

  Mai's face grew hot. Yi's visitor had been watching her train?

  "He would make a good captain of your personal guard when you are Emperor," the man continued. "The way he moves…he has the grace of the most skilled dancers, hypnotising you, even as he delivers a killing blow. I have never seen anything like it. And yet you tell me he devised the strategy that ended the siege, when no one believed such a thing was even possible? A strategist and a fighter. A rare combination, making him a very dangerous man. Are you sure of his loyalty?"

  "He saved my life, Father," Yi said. "Carried my unconscious body through a battlefield to camp. If that is not loyalty, I don't know what is."

  Realisation felled her with a flurry of blows. Yi was talking to the Emperor about her in the next room. The Emperor who had watched her train and now considered her dangerous. Questioned her loyalty. As though she would do anything to endanger the Emperor, or the man she loved.