Ning Chen looked at the dark mass of the army, thought a moment, and said two words: “I’ll go.”
Qi Yuanzhong and the others were alarmed.
The Wu woman emperor had always been known for a taste for blood and for war, and she often took the field in person. She was a woman, but nobody dared take her lightly.
And now she was inviting Ning Chen to a meeting. There was no telling what she had in mind.
Ning Chen smiled easily. “She invites me handsomely. If I duck out of meeting her, doesn’t that weaken the Great Xuan’s standing?”
“And if it buys the men a little time to get their strength back, the trip is worth making.”
“The crucial thing is that the soldiers of the Great Xuan must not think their commander is a mouse-hearted coward.”
Qi Yuanzhong and the others were worried, but they had no answer to that.
Besides, Ning Chen was the commander in chief, and what he said was a military order.
Ning Chen gave his orders. “Old Pan, Yuan Long — take two hundred musketeers and come with me.”
“This officer accepts the order!”
Yuan Long wasted no words and turned away to pick out the men. A military order is a mountain, and Ning Chen’s word was a military order.
Ning Chen looked at Qi Yuanzhong. “Brother Qi, I’m leaving this to you. If I’m not back in six hours, move the army a mile and a half forward.”
Getting there and back would take four hours at most.
An hour would be enough for the talking.
So six hours was about right.
Qi Yuanzhong nodded. “Yes!”
He could not help adding, “Take care, whatever happens.”
Ning Chen smiled and nodded slightly.
He had water brought, washed his face quickly, and changed into clean armor.
Ning Chen took Pan Yucheng and Yuan Long and two hundred musketeers and rode out to the meeting.
Diaochan went at the head, and two hundred-odd warhorses galloped off and were soon out of sight of the Great Xuan’s men.
In less than two hours, Ning Chen and his party slowed their horses.
In the open ground ahead, a tent had been pitched.
Soldiers stood guard at one side of it.
Ning Chen brought his men up.
The men on both sides watched each other, every eye wary.
The flap of the tent was lifted and Shi Shan came out, stooping.
Shi Shan was too tall for the doorway — a good six and a half feet of him, knotted with muscle, like a walking tower of iron, and the press of him was formidable.
He looked at the young man on the horse, and admiration showed in his eyes. He had not expected him to actually come.
“General Ning has nerve and judgment both. You have my respect.”
Ning Chen only smiled easily and swung down from the saddle.
Shi Shan bowed. “General Ning, this way. Her Majesty is waiting for you.”
Ning Chen looked back at Pan Yucheng and Yuan Long. “Wait for me here.”
With that, he strode toward the tent.
But Shi Shan stopped him.
“General Ning, I’m sorry. We have to search you.”
Ning Chen frowned and was about to speak when a clear voice, ringing and hard, came from inside the tent. “Shi Shan, you will not be rude to General Ning!”
“Yes!” Shi Shan bowed toward the tent, then looked at Ning Chen. “General Ning, please!”
One hand on his hilt and one behind his back — a stance that let him tear the crossbow off his belt in an instant.
Ning Chen walked into the tent with a long stride.
It was cold inside the tent, hardly warmer than outside.
Ning Chen’s eyes swept the place and took it all in at a glance.
In the middle, a mat had been laid down and a low table set on it.
Behind the low table sat a woman in gold armor, with a silver spear standing upright at her hand.
Seeing Ning Chen come in, she stood up.
Five foot seven or so by his eye, and twenty-four or twenty-five years old. The gold armor hid her figure, but that lovely face with its edge of soldier’s spirit took Ning Chen aback.
The Wu woman emperor was said to take the field in person often.
Ning Chen knew perfectly well what men in a camp are like.
He had assumed the Wu woman emperor would be thick through the shoulders and the waist, a woman built like a man, hardly different from one.
But looking at her now, the gap between the Wu woman emperor and what he had imagined was heaven and earth.
Her skin was not as delicate as a sheltered woman’s, but it was fine, a healthy wheat color; her features were cut clean and precise, and there was a woman’s charm in them and a man’s hardness too. She had a fine, dashing look about her.
She isn’t a stand-in, is she?
“General Ning, that took spirit! This emperor thought you would not dare come.”
The woman emperor spoke, her voice clear and hard.
Ning Chen raised an eyebrow. “Are you really the Wu woman emperor?”
“What, does anyone dare pass himself off as this emperor?”
Ning Chen said with a smile, “You never know. When two armies fight, the commander wears gold armor — but there’s no shortage of commanders who are afraid to die and find a man to stand in for them.”
The woman emperor took no offense at it, but reached out, drew the silver spear beside her, sprang high and came over the low table.
The long spear was like a dragon, turning into a single point of cold light driving at Ning Chen.
The instant the woman emperor drew the spear, the long blade at Ning Chen’s waist was already out of the scabbard.
Clang!!!
Ning Chen swept the blade across and struck the spearhead, knocking the spear aside, then turned like a top, spinning close along the shaft, and cut at her.
The woman emperor stepped back, raised one hand and blocked Ning Chen’s stroke with the shaft.
She kicked out, the silver spear sprang up, and a sweeping stroke came at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen pushed off with both feet and went over the sweeping spear.
The woman emperor drew the spear back, then thrust like lightning, points of cold light coming at Ning Chen.
Clang! Clang! Clang!!!
Sparks flew, and Ning Chen was driven back step after step.
With the wound in his shoulder he could only use the blade left-handed, and he very nearly could not hold off the woman emperor’s attack.
But all at once the woman emperor pulled the spear back and withdrew, opening the distance between them.
Ning Chen frowned. In that exchange he had come off worse.
Outside, the men on both sides heard the ring of metal on metal from inside the tent and went tense at once, watching each other warily, every sword half out.
“Your Majesty, are you all right?”
“General Ning, are you all right?”
Yuan Long and Shi Shan said it at the same moment.
The woman emperor looked toward the door of the tent and said, laughing, “I’m all right. General Ning and I were only trying a few passes. Don’t worry.”
Ning Chen answered Yuan Long too. “I’m all right!”
The woman emperor looked at Ning Chen and gave him a bright smile. “Does General Ning still doubt who this emperor is?”
Ning Chen put up his blade and said evenly, “What does that prove?”
“It proves that General Ning is carrying a wound, and this emperor could take your life easily enough.”
Ning Chen made a small sound. “Try it.”
The woman emperor did not argue the point with him. She walked back, planted the silver spear in the ground, and sat down cross-legged on the mat.
She pointed at the other side of the low table. “Sit, please. The men of my Wu Kingdom are not as delicately raised as your Great Xuan’s. It’s a plain enough setting, and I hope General Ning won’t think poorly of it.”
The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched.
He walked over and sat down, and said offhandedly, “The men of my Great Xuan can compose poems and couplets and take their ease behind warm curtains. They can also take up a blade, go into the line, and come back with the enemy’s head.”
The woman emperor burst out laughing.
“Of General Ning, this emperor believes it readily enough. But as for the men of the Great Xuan’s capital taking up a blade and going into the line — this emperor does not believe that. Every one of them is soft in the bearing and idle by habit. Never mind killing an enemy in the line; wouldn’t the sight of blood frighten them to death?”
Ning Chen said nothing, because what the woman emperor said was true.
His eyes happened to fall on the sheets of paper on the low table.
The woman emperor noticed where he was looking, picked up the sheaf of paper and said with a smile, “Drunk, I trim the lamp to look at my sword; in dreams I am back among the camps, the horns calling down the line. A fine lyric!”
“A thousand hammers and ten thousand chisels, and it comes out of the deep mountain; the fierce fire burns it and it counts that as nothing. A fine poem!”
“One flake, two flakes, three flakes, four; five flakes, six flakes, seven flakes, eight. Amusing!”
“The clouds would have her robes, the flowers her face; the spring wind comes over the railing and the dew lies thick and bright. What a beautiful poem!”
(End of Chapter 279)