snarky_panda (snarky_panda) wrote in mulanficspace, @ 2007-06-06 23:28:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | 5trueloves, a tale of the woman, au |
A Tale of the Woman, Part Four, Chapter Eight
Fandom: Mulan
Title: Secrets and Lies
Author: snarky panda
Theme: #28, Secret
Pairing/Characters: Fa Mulan/Li Shang
Rating/Warning: NC-17
Disclaimer: Anything from the Disney movie belongs to Disney. Anything from Raise the Red Lantern belongs to Su Tong.
Summary: 4th part of a crossover fic (sort of) inspired by Raise the Red Lantern and alternate storyline based on another outcome that could have occurred because Mulan failed the matchmaker’s test. (Link to beginning of story)
*******
Chapter 8
The march was long and tiring. They spent hours in the saddle everyday for weeks, trotting through fields and forests, over rugged and rocky terrain, finally ascending into high mountains toward the village at the pass where General Li was stationed with his troops.
Mulan became more and more apprehensive as they drew closer to that meeting place. She brought up the rear with some of the other younger recruits, and chances were that the general would hardly be likely to pay attention to their group. Why would he be interested in the youngest and least experienced recruits? No, chances were he’d speak only to his son and the councilman, not sparing anyone else a second glance.
Still, what if he recognized her? Her transgressions were multiple, after all; she’d left his home and her place as his fifth wife. She’d impersonated a man and a soldier. And if she was caught, it would be a dishonor to the Imperial Army. Death was the only punishment fitting for such a list of crimes and no doubt he would execute her on the spot.
And maybe that would be for the best. Perhaps it was her destiny all along; after all, she wouldn’t be the first of his wives that he’d killed. His third wife had almost certainly died at his hand. She’d cheated on him and he’d meted out justice. She never discovered what had become of Honglian, his fourth wife. Doctor Liang had left her to finish her tea that day she ran into him in the village, advising her that there had been an incident but revealing nothing more.
I fear she may have harmed herself.
A twinge of guilt gripped her when she recalled his words. There was nothing she could do now, but she couldn’t help but wonder. Would things have been different for Honglian had she stayed?
The men around her passed the long and wearisome days of travel by singing, mostly about women, the lyrics often becoming quite raunchy. But she took it in stride, tuning it out, glad to be all the way in the back; for Chi Fu rode up front with the captain and she preferred to be as far away from him as possible. In the evenings when they stopped to make camp for the night she could still feel his eyes on her wherever she went. Yet, he still hadn’t come forward to announce that he knew her secret.
Whenever they were camped near a lake or stream she bathed, but she was extra careful ever since the last night at Wu Zhong when she’d nearly been caught. She only went either very late, long after the rest of the troop had turned in, or very early, a couple of hours before sunrise.
They were marching through high terrain now, where snow covered the jagged peaks and the winding mountain path ahead of them. Mulan was grateful for her armor, having packed the bare minimum of warm clothing, particularly the helmet that kept her head warm and might also possibly hide her face from General Li.
The men bantered and bragged about women and drink as always. Mulan was too busy bracing herself against the wind that howled and whipped against her face to care what they had to say. As they reached the summit, she noticed that the captain and the men following right behind him had stopped; so had their casual chatter. The stench of burnt wood and something else reached her nostrils before she arrived at the top of the hill and she felt her stomach clench. Her burned-down village had smelled exactly the same way.
She reached the crest, joining the others, and her heart sank as she took in the sight. The village was gone, except for several burnt skeletons of what were houses and buildings. Flames still licked at a few of the structures, slowly dying out. The bell in the middle of the town swung in the wind, eerily clanging out at distant intervals, as if tolling for each victim.
“Search for survivors,” Captain Li ordered, turning his horse and heading off in one direction to survey the details of the scene.
Mulan dismounted and, leaving Khan behind, walked along what must have been the main street of the village. An object lay in her path and she stooped to have a look. It was a small doll in a red dress. She scooped it up, tears welling up in her eyes, and clutched it against her chest. At the sound of horses’ hooves behind her she straightened up and composed herself.
“I don’t understand. My father should have been here.” There was confusion in the captain’s voice as he spoke. He’d dismounted and had come to stand right beside her, looking somewhat lost.
She glanced at him, unable to answer. A terrible feeling had formed in the pit of her stomach and she dreaded what was to come.
“Captain! Captain!” the councilman shouted in alarm.
Li Shang hurried over to him and Mulan followed at a distance. Seeing the captain’s ashen face and expression of horror when he stopped, she knew before she even looked what kind of scene would greet her when she gazed down into the valley below them. Bloody, broken bodies were sprawled throughout the open plain. Armor and swords lay strewn about, a wheel of one of the overturned carts spun lightly in the wind; even the horses hadn’t been spared.
One of the soldiers of their troop was approaching from the valley. He reached the captain and held out a helmet with two plumes and a sword.
“The general,” he uttered sadly.
Mulan felt as if she’d been stabbed through the heart as she took in the sight of General Li’s helmet. Her mind ground to a sudden halt and for a long time she couldn’t move a muscle. A scream was forming deep inside of her, but it remained lodged in her throat, unable to reach the air.
The sweep of the red cape of the captain’s uniform as he turned and walked off caught her eye and she was pulled somewhat out of her stocked stupor.
His father.
With a choked cry she dropped to her knees, the doll that she’d picked up falling to the ground. She knelt there for a long time, her face buried in her hands, wanting the tears to flow but unable to make them come. It was as if she was seeing her village, her home all over again.
She was a widow. And Captain Li had lost his father.
oooOooo
“How are you doing?”
Mulan looked up from where she sat before the small fire she’d made, off away from the others. The captain pushed his cape behind him and took a seat next to her on the grass.
She turned back and stared into the flames with a shrug. “Okay.”
Casting a furtive glance his way when he spoke no further she saw that he was observing her carefully, his characteristic serious expression in place but with a tinge of concern mixed in. She sighed inwardly, thinking that he ought to be worried about himself not her. He’d suffered a terrible loss that day.
True, she wasn’t as stoic and in control as he was. In fact, she had to admire the courage and strength of character that he’d shown in the face of the greatest grief.
“Shan-Yu’s army is moving quickly,” he’d ordered, mounting his steed again and gesturing to the pass ahead of them. His emotions had been in check, his youthful voice commanding as always. “We’ll reach the Imperial City faster through the Tung Shao Pass. We’re the only hope for the Emperor now. Move out.”
Watching him continue on in the face of tragedy had given her strength. And before following him and the rest of the troop away from that gut-wrenching scene, she’d laid the doll that she’d found at the foot of the memorial he’d made for his father out of his own sword and the general’s helmet. He’d kept General Li’s sword.
A dull ache settled in her heart as she thought about the general. Despite what she had now pieced together about his third wife and Honglian, he had been very kind to her. She didn’t even mind sleeping with him after awhile. His body was warm and strong and comforting, and he was experienced. Once she became relaxed about sex, he pleasured her easily. And he pampered her, almost as if he were her father.
She was certain she would never know any of that again.
“I know how difficult it must have been to see that, after seeing your own village…” he trailed off as she turned away again without answering.
He cleared his throat.
“Ping, you’ve proven yourself to be an excellent soldier, despite how much younger you are than most of the men. But I know what happened before you joined my regiment…I want to make sure that you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. And I don’t know what anyone told you, but I wasn’t crying,” she muttered defiantly, frowning at him.
It was true. Other than one choked sob the sounds hadn’t wanted to come out of her. And she suspected that if they did, they would have been screams, not crying.
“Everyone was horrified at that scene today,” he remarked.
Mulan dug her fingers into the grass, pulling up clumps of it and irritably flinging them back to the ground. She knew that the captain was just making sure that ‘Ping’ hadn’t been pushed over the edge, that he wasn’t going to run off half-cocked in the midst of a battle; but the discussion was nettling her for some reason.
Captain Li patted her on the shoulder, in the same manner that he had after she approached him as he prayed over his father’s memorial at the scene of that battle.
“I’m sorry.”
That was all she could think to say to him in the moment. She barely knew anything about his relationship to General Li; her status was too low for her to have been privy to such a thing. Whether they were close or not, she only knew that it was devastating to lose one’s father. Her words weren’t nearly enough to provide comfort. But the captain had stood up and turned to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and gazing at her in grateful acknowledgement before walking past her and to his horse.
“You should get something to eat, Ping,” he told her now, his voice somehow gruff and gentle at the same time. “We have to get moving and we’ll be marching through the night to catch up to Shan-Yu. You’ll need your strength.”
The fact that he’d noticed that she hadn’t eaten took her aback. He was genuinely concerned about his soldier, and clearly watching her very carefully.
“Yes, sir,” she answered.
He stood up and held a hand out to help her up. She accepted it gratefully and managed a small smile.
oooOooo
There was darkness. Then she remembered splotches of red on an endless white landscape; blood. And a mountain of snow rushing toward her.
Her throat was parched and it hurt to swallow. Slowly her eyes fluttered open and she took in her surroundings. She was lying on the ground, covered in thick blankets, and she was in a tent. Concentric circles of light reflected off the canvas from the lantern that sat beside her.
A groan involuntarily escaped her lips as she attempted to stir, finding that her body was sore and tender. She’d been wounded, she remembered now, her abdomen sliced at the end of the jagged blade of the enemy’s sword. An unusually designed blade, wielded by a man who was a size that she never imagined men could come in. And then the avalanche that she had caused was thundering toward her, threatening to engulf her and her comrades.
Muffled voices outside of the tent became louder and the words became clearer.
“I knew it! I knew it!” The councilman. His whiny, nasal voice was unmistakable. “I knew there was something about that so-called soldier.”
“That so-called soldier saved us all,” she recognized the captain’s voice. “Saved me personally.”
“It’s ultimate dishonor and the punishment is death. You know that, Captain Li, and it’s your duty to carry out that punishment. She’s lucky that it worked out and she saved us. You know as well as I do that her reckless behavior might have just as easily brought about disaster.”
She. Mulan began to tremble underneath the blankets at the gravity of the councilman’s use of that pronoun. They knew about her.
The captain sighed audibly. “It’s because of her strategy that our enemy was stopped.”
There was silence for several moments.
“No.” It was Captain Li’s voice again. “I won’t kill her. The medic will see to it that she’s healed and as soon as she is, I’ll send her on her way. But I won’t take the life of someone who saved my life, who saved all of our lives.”
“But…”
“I’ve made my decision. That’s it. I want answers from her before we part ways anyhow.”
“This is completely irregular, Captain Li. What would your father say?”
Heavy silence fell for several moments before the captain spoke up again, his voice harsh.
“My father is not here to say anything. Besides, we don’t know what her intentions are. She could be a spy for Shan-Yu.”
“No doubt.” A characteristic sniff accompanied that remark.
“Well, then you can see my point. Just killing her would be unwise. Also, no one else is to hear of this. Only the medic, you and I know the truth about Fa Ping, and that’s the way it will stay.”
A sharp squeal of disbelief escaped from Chi Fu. "What? Surely you don’t think that I’m going to keep this from the Emperor! I am his council.”
“True. But we’re a hundred miles from the Imperial City. I’ve made my decision. This stays between you, me and Doctor Yang. When we return to Chang’an you can tell the Emperor whatever you wish. By that time she’ll have gone on her way anyway.”
“The Emperor will have your head for this, Captain Li. You’ve been warned. I wash my hands of anything that happens next because of your failure to carry out his law.”
“Fine. And if we find out valuable information about the enemy from her, the Emperor will be grateful that I didn’t just kill her without a second thought.”
There was a rustle as the tent flap was pushed aside and the captain’s broad body filled the entrance. He stepped in and tied the flaps behind him, then approached her where she lay and sat down beside her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice even and calm.
She gazed up at him searchingly, unable to read his thoughts and feelings in his expression, which remained detached yet concerned all at once.
“Thirsty,” she managed to utter, her voice crackling.
He nodded and reached over, taking up a water skin. With one hand he lifted and supported her head, with the other he brought the skin to her lips. She lapped up the liquid, closing her eyes as it whetted and soothed her throat.
Finished drinking she lay back down, eyeing him warily.
Li Shang set aside the water skin and folded his arms, staring at her steadily.
“You’re insane,” he finally stated flatly.
Mulan didn’t answer. What was there to say to that?
“You’ll stay with us until you’re healed. And then I’m leaving you. You’re dishonorable and you deserve nothing better than to be left here to die. But you saved all of our lives, you saved my life.”
His quiet, controlled demeanor terrified her more than if he’d been shouting at her.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to execute me. Maybe you should.”
She was surprised at how calm her own voice was.
His eyes were cold, the way they were that day she met him in the corridor at the Li compound. Such a long time ago.
“Why did you leave my father’s house?”
That threw her for a loop and she felt her heart skip a beat. He knew her after all. She didn’t even think that he’d given her a second look that day.
There was no way she could explain it to him. He just wouldn’t understand.
“What did you think you were doing? Did you come looking for him?”
Unable to speak, she merely shook her head.
“You’re his concubine. A life under his roof wasn’t good enough for you? Why would you do this?”
“I didn’t think you knew me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible to her.
Surprise slid into his eyes momentarily before he suppressed it and schooled his face into stone again.
“We only met once.” Her voice was stronger as she continued. “And I didn’t think you would remember me…I never saw you after that.”
“Second Wife used to complain to my father about how you were outside practicing martial arts. As did the servants. Were you preparing yourself for the army, Fifth Mistress?”
Hot prickles of shame ran through her body. His tone was undeniably acidic as he emphasized those words. Her destiny and status in life had been set when she was married off to General Li as a fifth wife. Try as she might have to escape it, here it was staring her in the face again. Li Shang’s words brought that home harder than ever.
“Was this some kind of game you were playing? Some sort of trick?”
“No!” she answered fervently. Catching herself, she took a deep breath and schooled her own face into a stoic mask. “No, sir.”
He sighed in exasperation. “Will you at least tell me why you came here? Into my camp?”
“It was a coincidence that I ended up in your camp. When I returned to my family’s home, it had been destroyed. The whole village had been. And…his name was still on the scrolls that were up in town. I thought…” she trailed off, not wishing to continue. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do; now it just seemed ridiculous and foolish to her. And she knew it would have come across that way to him.
“Why did you go back to your family’s home? It’s outrageous for you to have left your husband’s home!”
She thought of the abortion medicine that Yun had been slipping into her tea, and of Honglian and what she had gone through. And she lamented the life that she’d been thrown into, having to leave her family behind just as her own father was dying. Shang would never understand. How could he? It had nothing to do with him; he was so far above the petty bickering that went on between General Li’s wives. And what would he know of a woman’s troubles?
Tears began to stream from her eyes and she winced, trying to stifle the sobs that shook her body, jostling her wound and causing her excruciating pain. Besides, she didn’t want to cry in front of him.
“I’m very tired,” she managed to say, regaining control of herself.
“Rest now then.” His voice was low and rough. “I’ll return later to speak with you.”
(Link to Chapter 9)