Alternate Generals II

Labor Relations Esther M. Friesner

It was in the Month Without Gods, in the third year of the great invasion of the three Korean kingdoms, that Old One's great-great-granddaughter Snow Moon went out to fetch water and came home with a Japanese soldier. She found him slumbering behind some thorn bushes that grew on the mountain where Old One's special seeing-spring leaped forth from the rocks. He wore atanko over his clothes-the short-bodied iron cuirass favored by the invaders-with his helmet and spear laid out on the ground beside him. It would have been an easy thing for even a child to grab the spear and spit him through the throat, then and there, but he was young and handsome and, since the war had begun, Snow Moon had come to an age when such things mattered.

So it was that Old One looked up from her iron tripod through the open doorway of her hut to see the child of her grandson's daughter come walking along the village path, prodding a shamefaced Japanese soldier along before her with his own spear, his bronze shortsword thrust awkwardly into the sash of her jacket.

"Now what?" she muttered. She rose from her stool, shook the wrinkles from her seer's robes, and came out into the sunlight, blinking like a toad.

The girl's route home from the mountainside took her and her prisoner through most of the village, so that by the time they reached her great-great-grandmother's house their progress was attended by every woman, child, gaffer, dog, pig, and chicken with time to spare and curiosity to waste. The young man's face grew pale as he trod the narrow path between rows of hostile faces. The war had gone on for long enough to drain the village of all its able-bodied males, leaving behind wives and sweethearts whose patriotism had soured more and more with every winter's night when all they had to occupy their minds was needlework. There was only so much embroidery a woman could do before she realized there were some itches that a dainty little needle was insufficient to scratch.

It was one such badly deprived lady who threw the first clod of pig manure. Others soon followed her example.

To his credit, the young man did not flinch from that less-than-refreshing rain. Instead, he turned in his assailants' direction and allowed his face to melt into the most charmingly regretful smile anyone in the village had ever seen. On so handsome a face, such a tender expression was utterly devastating. The village filled with the echoing plops of manure balls dropping from nerveless hands and of many women crying out to the young man in pity, apology, and invitation.

Old One saw all this and shook her head. "Idiots. First they threaten his life one way, then another. Can't they see he's one of our enemies? He may know things that will prove priceless to our own armies." She hastened forward, bulling her way through the sea of clamoring females, all the while shouting, "Fools! Headless chickens! This man is valuable! Will you kill him and waste what good he can do us?"

Most of the crowd stepped aside for Old One, but the blacksmith's wife-a woman as sturdy as her husband's anvil and as fearless of his hammer-stood her ground. "You don't have to tellme how valuable he is," she replied. "Just look at that back, so strong and young! And those arms! And those legs! He's healthy as a horse and twice as beautiful."

"And you'd be just the one to break him to the saddle, eh?" Old One spat deftly, so that the gob landed just an inch from the other woman's toes. "Wait until your man comes home and I tell him that."

"Ifmy man comes home." The blacksmith's wife glowered. "It's been almost three years since the war began and no sign that it will ever end. And if it does, will there be a single man left alive in all the three kingdoms?"

"Well, they're not dead yet," the young man spoke up.

Old One and the blacksmith's wife turned to stare. "What did you say?" Old One asked. The Japanese soldier's grasp of the local tongue was serviceable but a trifle shaky and she wanted to be certain she had not misunderstood.

"I said that no one's dead," he repeated. "It is the will of our Empress, the serene lady Jingo, who leads us into glorious battle. Uh… more or less glorious. And I suppose you couldn't technically call itbattle, but-"

" 'Us', you say?" Old One interrupted, regarding the young man closely. "I see only one of you."

The young man lowered his eyes. "I am in truth only one. I am called Matsumoto Yoshi."

"You are called worse things. You're a deserter, aren't you?" The young man did not reply, and his shamed silence was an eloquent confirmation. "I thought so," Old One said with satisfaction. "Just what this village needs: A pretty coward."

"I am not a coward!" Matsumoto Yoshi's eyes flashed angrily. "Ask anyone who knows me!"

Old One cocked her head to one side. "Here?"

The young man was not disposed to chop the logic of his declarations. "I did not leave our army because I feared death," he continued. "I left because I could no longer bear the insult to my manhood that this war has become. Who ever heard of battles without bloodshed, campaigns without corpses? How is a warrior to make his reputation without killingsomebody? But such is the will of our Empress." He scowled, a grimace which did nothing to diminish his beauty. The village women sighed and murmured that it was very naughty of the Japanese Empress to deprive such a fine young man of the opportunity to advance his chosen career through applied slaughter.

Old One turned to Snow Moon. "My stool and my pipe," she said. When these were brought, she settled down, lit the gummy nubbin in the silver bowl, and inhaled the smoke deeply before addressing the visitor once more.

"What a great gift you have brought me, Matsumoto Yoshi," she said. "If I live to be two hundred I shall never be able to thank you enough."

"Gift?" the young man repeated, confused. "What gift?"

"At my age, anything new is a gift, for I awaken each day with the dreadful conviction that I have already seen all that this world has to offer. Only by encountering something new do I manage to go on living. Take your case, for example: You have given me not one but three fine gifts. First, you bring me word of a woman commanding troops. This is wonderful."

"The Empress is only doing what her late husband, the Emperor Chuai, should have done while he yet lived." Matsumoto Yoshi's tone was downright sulky. "He took a vow before his divine ancestress, the great sun-goddess Amaterasu, that he would subjugate this land, for such was her desire. But he kept putting it off and putting it off-doubtless because he did not yet have an heir who might assume the imperial throne-until it pleased the gods to take him into their company."

"A man who would rather make love to his wife than go out and steal another man's land?" Old One raised one tufty white eyebrow. "In that case, make itfour gifts you've brought. How munificent!"

"What are the remaining two?" A distinct chill had come into the young man's voice. He looked down his nose at the old woman on her stool as if he had already conquered the village and all who dwelled in it single-handed, solely by the force of his having been born able to pee neatly while standing up.

"Don't take that tone with me, sonny," Old One said, chuckling. "You only enrich me. The other two unheard-of things are these: That a war is fought without killing and that a man is fool enough to think this is a calamity. I would like to meet your Empress; she sounds clever. Tell me, little fighting cock, howhas she managed to keep a war going for three years without a single death?"

"By the favor of the goddess Amaterasu, of course," Matsumoto Yoshi said haughtily. "The divine one gave the Empress a pair of miraculous gems, the Tide Ebbing and the Tide Flowing Jewels. By these, the serene lady Jingo was able to subdue the very waves of the sea and to bring our armies here in safety. By these she continues to rule the waters, making seas and mighty rivers do her bidding."

"Is that so?That would be a sight worth seeing."

"I've seen it," Matsumoto Yoshi said dully. "I have done nothing but see it since we left home. Every time we have had the chance for a good, settled, murderous battle, the Empress calls upon the power of the Tide Ebbing and the Tide Flowing Jewels and suddenly there is a great and unwelcome incursion of water, preventing any combat. Your people pursue ours or ours pursue yours, only to have the Empress call a halt to the chase time and time again by invoking Amaterasu's tokens."

"A strange strategy for a general intent on conquest," Old One mused. "What can she have in mind?" Rising from her seat, she motioned for Snow Moon to approach. "Pack food and clothing and the apparatus of my profession. We will visit this Empress Jingo."

So it was that Old One, Snow Moon, and Matsumoto Yoshi soon left the village behind, retracing the path by which he had first reached them. The young soldier was in a foul mood, one which became fouler by the footstep.

"I don't know why I'm doing this," he grumbled as he led them along.

"You are doing this because you don't want to die," said Old One.

Matsumoto Yoshi gave a short, bitter laugh. "A true warrior does not fear death."

"A mad warrior does not fear death," Old One corrected him. "A true warrior fears death but faces it anyway. As for you, I see you are an idiot warrior, so I couldn't say what your attitude toward death would be."

"Oh! Grandmother!" Snow Moon gasped at such rudeness to one so young and strong and handsome. "How can you speak to him so? Isn't he doing your bidding willingly? Isn't he guiding us where we want to go?"

"Willingly," Old One repeated. "As long as you and I hold his weapons." Her hand closed comfortably around the hilt of his captive sword and she nodded at the great spear now in Snow Moon's keeping.

The girl seemed eager to take the handsome young man's part against her ancestress. "You know as well as I that if he tried to escape, he would easily outdistance you and that sword. As for me, I am intimidated by this powerful shaft; it's much too big for me to handle skillfully."

"You'll learn," Old One said. She turned to their guide and added: "I ask your pardon, Matsumoto Yoshi. By taking us to meet your Empress, you are indeed performing a great service for us, but a greater one for your own people, for I mean to put an end to this endless war."

"I don't see how you'll do that," he said sullenly. "When we reach the Empress' encampment, you will be taken prisoner. As for me, I can't even enter the precincts, for if I'm seen, I'll be arrested for desertion and my fate will be a dishonorable death."

"Oh, I don't think so," Old One said. "But if you do make good your escape a second time, take a miserable old woman's advice: Become a recluse and live alone. On no account make your presence known in any village or town in all Korea for, if you do, the women will get you, and then you will surely die."

"Ha!" Scorn contorted Matsumoto Yoshi's face. "I don't think any of you women knows what to do with a spear any more than this sweet maiden does."

Snow Moon blushed at the compliment, but Old One herself said, "You would not die by spear or sword. We women have a secret weapon. Like your precious Empress, we know that victory does not always go to the side that can command sharp, sudden sorties and incursions, but to the side with the most staying power. In other words, in a land where so many men are gone from home, you would be sucked drier than an old persimmon rind in a fortnight. Do you follow me, boy?"

Matsumoto Yoshi did. At first he leered, but the leer soon dwindled to a weak smile which quickly faded to a look of badly controlled panic. "You-you think that if I rejoin my troops, the Empress won't call for my death?"

"I promise it," said Old One. "For behold, have you not brought her a precious gift?"

"I have? What?"

"Me."

The Empress Jingo sat in her hilltop pavillion, contemplating hertanko, its iron shell adorned with a riveted skirt, every rivet on skirt and cuirass capped with gold. It had been made to her exact measurements, which gave her both comfort and protection, but absolutely no leeway when it came to gaining weight. It hung from a lacquered rack, attended by her bow and quiver. Beneath these, in a green box with a gold pattern of sea waves, resided the Tide Ebbing and Tide Flowing Jewels, Amaterasu's gracious gifts.

Twoof Amaterasu's gracious gifts. Despite the awesome power contained within the small green box, there was still a third gift which the goddess had bestowed upon the Empress that left the mastery of wave and water looking dreadfully pathetic by comparison.

She rose and crossed the pavilion to where a polished bronze mirror on a wooden stand awaited her pleasure. She was not a vain woman, though her beauty gave her every right to be, and while her royal husband lived she had spent scarcely any time at all studying her own image.

"Three years changes much," she murmured to her reflection. "And nothing." She stood sideways and ran her hands down the front of her tightly cinched robe, over the perfect flatness of her belly. Incredible. The marvel of it all never ceased to astonish her.

She was thus wrapped up in her own thoughts when they brought her the news: Matsumoto Yoshi had returned with prisoners of war. For love of his Empress he had taken it upon himself to scout the land in hopes of finding something that might help the war effort. The gods had blessed him and he had found such a thing. He begged the Empress to honor his miserable efforts on behalf of the imperial house of Yamato by deigning to view his offerings.

The Empress Jingo sighed and called for her servants. They dressed her in her warrior's garb-a serviceable tunic and wide-legged trousers tied below the knee, both with the gorgeous embellishments proper to her rank-helped her don hertanko for effect, and laced on her leather arm-guards. Only then did she step outside.

"Women?" she exclaimed when she saw Matsumoto Yoshi's "offering." Old One and Snow Moon stood one to either side of their supposed captor, each with a small bundle of possessions at her feet. "You have capturedwomen? Forthis I put on armor?"

"Most excellent lady, this is no ordinary woman," the young soldier said quickly, pushing Old One to the fore. "She is a great power among her people, a seer of inestimable talent. She is also terribly, awfully, extremely and acutely old."

"How old is she?" the Empress asked, raising one mothlike eyebrow.

"I am so old that there are rocks who call me grandmother," Old One spoke up. "I am so old that the name my parents gave me at my birth got tired of waiting for me to die and preceeded me to the grave so that now I am known simply as Old One. I am so old that I remember when dragons were plentiful enough for housewives to have to use brooms to chase the smaller ones out of their gardens. I am so old that I recall the days when Japan was not the only land which the men of China called the Queen Country." She stared meaningfully at the Empress.

"That's old," the Empress Jingo admitted.

"She is a treasure," Matsumoto Yoshi went on. "If word reaches the Korean troops that we have her, they will at last accede to a peace parley. Your excellency will be able to set your own terms and acheive your goal of hegemony over the Three Kingdoms. The war will be won, the gods will be satisfied, and we can all go home!"

The longer he spoke, the more Matsumoto Yoshi began to believe his own words and the greater his enthusiasm grew until he was joyfully prophesying a swift and immediate victory. The Japanese troops, all massed in their ranks before the Empress' pavilion, took fire from him and began to cheer in a most raucous manner.

The Empress Jingo made a small mouth and gave Old One a sideways look that as good as said: Men! Old One shrugged and both women smiled.

"Honored guest in my land," Old One said when she could at last be heard above the soldiers' clamor. "If my age commands any respect at all from you, I beg you to grant me a private audience."

It was a simple request, innocent, and readily granted. Old One picked up her bundle and carried it into the imperial pavilion while the Empress commended the care of Snow Moon to Matsumoto Yoshi. Only when Jingo had been relieved of her armor, refreshments had been brought, and the last servant had been dismissed did the women speak.

"You're not his prisoner, are you," the Empress stated.

Old One chuckled. "And you are not going to have him put to death for saying I was."

"I should. His whole story is riddled with lies like a block of rotten wood with wormholes. More likely he was your prisoner-though how that came to pass I can not say-and bringing you to me was your idea alone. He didn't undertake an expedition to help us win the war; he ran away."

"True. But he has come back, and with me, and I am in fact the treasure that he paints me. You will not call for his death, O Empress."

"You sound sure of that."

"A war that drags on for three years with not a single casualty, all thanks to those Jewels of yours, and you want me to believe you'd be capable of ordering an execution?"

Jingo's brow darkened. "Don't underestimate me. If it is necessary, I will command that a life be taken. If needful I will take that life myself."

"You are not a coward, O Empress," Old One said, calmly raising a teacup to her lips and slurping contentedly. "You don't fear death, but like all good housewives you despise wastefulness."

"You dare to call me a housewife?" Jingo sprang from her seat, bristling. "I am the Empress of all Japan!"

"Same job, bigger house." Old One drank more tea. "You see to it that everyone under your roof is properly fed and clothed, you look to the future and provide for it, and you do your best to keep your beloved children from harming themselves or others."

Jingo held onto her anger for a few heartbeats longer, then slowly sank back onto her stool. "I see your point."

"Now if only I could see yours." Old One helped herself to some of the little leaf-shaped cakes that the Empress' servants had left behind on a tray. "A war without deaths-very admirable, but to what end?"

"The same end as all wars: Victory."

"Yes, but victory to be acheived by what means? We chase you, you chase us, we all get ready for a fight, and before anyone can draw his sword-whoosh! — an uninvited river. Nothing is decided and the chase resumes. This is a war with neither gain nor loss for either side. Let it go. Pack up your quarrelsome children and go home."

"I can't," the Empress replied. "Such is not the will of the gods."

"We have other gods in these lands. I have brought my tripod so that I may invoke our divinities. When they appear I'll ask them to pay a social call upon your gods and settle the whole thing amongst themselves."

"That would be futile. This is the Month Without Gods, the yearly time when the greatkami gather at Izumo. But even if our gods were here, your offer would be rejected. This war is the will of Amaterasu, benevolent ancestress of the imperial house. She first entrusted it to my beloved husband-"

"— the Emperor Chuai, yes. That nice young man told me. Is that the only reason why you pursue this war? Because you fear that if you disobey, the benevolent goddess will kill you, too?"

All that Jingo replied to this was: "Bah."

"You are so certain of her good will?"

"Naturally. She did not order this war for herself-what need does the greatkami of the sun have for mere mortal kingdoms? — but for the enrichment and advancement of her beloved descendants, the imperial house of Japan."

Old One's wrinkled face twisted into an expression compounded of disbelief, surprise, and unconditional rejection of every word she had just heard. "O wise Empress, with all due respect and every honor due to your position, I ask you: Are you out of your mind?What descendants? Your husband is dead, and you may correct me if I err but as I understand ithe was Amaterasu's descendant, not you."

"I will not correct where there is no error," Jingo said. "He was in fact then the last of her line."

"And he died three years ago." Old One felt uneasy in her bones. Surely the Empress did not need to have such things spelled out for her? Shelooked sane enough.

"I know it well. I mourn him to this day and will forever honor his memory. All the more reason to win these kingdoms for our son."

Old One's mouth opened. No sound came out. She closed it again, then made another stab at expressing herself, but this one likewise came a cropper. Closing both her mouth and her eyes she took a deep breath, mentally rattled through the names of her eleven husbands to center herself, and finally was able to say, "Your husband diedthree yearsago. Do they handle these mattersthat differently in Japan?" She pointed definitely at the Empress' flat belly.

Jingo laughed and placed her hands over her abdomen. "In the natural course of things, we women of Japan handle these matters much as do you women of Korea. I know I don't look like a woman with child, but-"

"Threeyears," Old One insisted. "He's been dead for threeyears not threemonths. You, a woman with child? By this time, you should look like a woman with water buffalo!"

"All thanks to Amaterasu. I fulfill her wishes and she permits me thus to carry her descendant, the Emperor-to-be, until this war is over."

Old One looked skeptical. She had had many years' practice at it. "Now let me see if I have this right," she said. "You are enduring a pregnancy of three years' duration, so far, that will not come to its natural end until you win a war that you are waging without bloodshed?"

Jingo graciously acknowledged that this was so.

"In that case, O Empress, I don't need to set up my tripod to read your future: You're going to be pregnant a long, long,long time."

"I disagree. In fact-" the Empress flashed Old One a playful smile "-the war is almost won. You see, I have within my power a weapon of such devastating strength, such awesome might, such-"

"I know, I know: The Tide Ebbing and Tide Flowing Jewels."

Jingo lightly waved away Old One's mention of Amaterasu's miraculous gifts. "Besidethis, they are nothing. For this is a weapon that slowly but surely devours from within, and against which there is neither protection nor remedy."

"Poison?"

"Boredom."

The Empress stood up and began to pace the rice-straw mats that floored the imperial pavilion. "You have lived long, Old One; you know the way of things. A man begins a war with his head befogged by dreams of winning everlasting glory in battle. Soon enough he learns the truth, that every battle is an island of rousing terror surrounded by a sea of spirit-drowning tedium. I have found the way to sink those islands and cover all the land with a war so dull, so inert, so uneventful, that it is only a matter of time beforeeveryone deserts just to escape the monotony!"

"If everyone deserts, how can anyone win?" Old One demanded.

"By the old rule of the last man standing. Only in this case, he will be commanded by a woman."

"What! You think your forces will triumph? They'll be as bored as ours!"

"Yes, but when my men debate running away, they will remember that they have a much longer road home, over a sea whose tidesI control. Your men, on the other hand, will think of their wives and sweethearts, the comforts of their homes which stand oh, so much closer at hand! And that's to say nothing of the lure of home-cooking over army food. One fine day your kings and generals will wake up to face a sea of empty encampments. They will surrender out of pure embarrassment. All we need to do is outwait that day. It is only a matter of time."

Old One stared in awe at the Empress. Brilliant, she thought. She may be crazy-a three-year pregnancy? — but she's right. A war without battles can only endure for so long until even the most glory-blinded man gives it up as a bad bargain. And there are practical matters to consider as well: Our kings can not feed their soldiers forever, not when those soldiers are the same men who must be home to till the fields. But the Japanese will be fed with supplies from their own land, carried on ships sped across the waters by those accursed Jewels. An empty belly swallows dreams of glory quickly. It is only a matter of time indeed, and then… defeat.

Old One got down on hands and knees and pressed her forehead to the mats. "O Empress, who can stand against the truth? I concede your eventual, inevitable victory and humbly offer you my services." Sitting back on her haunches, she added: "I have seen the banners of our armies raised on the hillside opposite this one. Let me go there to speak with the kings and the generals, let me explain to them the futility of prolonging this war. I am sure that we may reach an accord whose terms will satisfy both our peoples."

"Don't be silly," said the Empress. "What terms? I win, I get Korea. Well, my son the Emperor-to-be will get Korea, but I'll take care of it for him until he's old enough to appreciate it."

Old One did not care to hear her country spoken of as if it were a piece of Chinese porcelain to be kept out of reach of a rambunctious toddler. "Unconditional surrender? Is that all you will accept?"

"It's all I need to accept."

Old One scowled. The Empress met her angry look with an expression of utter composure. Both women knew that there was only truth behind Jingo's words, a truth that the Empress saw no need to honey-coat in order to make it more palatable.

The Empress could not know that Old One was as fond of honey as any bear, and just as liable to make reprisals if deprived of it.

You are as arrogant as a fortified town, O Empress, safe behind the walls of your goddess, and your Jewels, and your indisputable strategy, Old One thought, closing her eyes lest the sight of Jingo's complacent face should make her lose her temper at a diplomatically inadvisable juncture. I have never cared for walls. I swear that I will be the one to bring them down around your ears. Have I lived this long, mastered so much lore, learned so many spells, gathered so many memories and not one among them all will save my homeland? May the gods close my eyes with earth if that is so! The answer lies within me. The question now is only… where?

Old One retreated deep within herself, searching for the solution she knew she must find. With her eyes thus closed and her breathing slowed by deep contemplation, she lost all track of time. She was unaware that she had become the picture of an ancient woman who had grown weary of the world's commotion, had settled her dignity around her like a cloak, and simply had taken her leave. Her sudden silence and immobility alarmed the Empress, who grabbed her by the shoulder and called out her name in a most distracted manner.

"What?" Old One snapped like a turtle at this imperial interference with her meditations.

The Empress had not expected the presumed corpse to speak. She gasped and tottered back a few steps, her hands on her stomach. "Oh! Praise all the gods, you're still alive. For a moment, I thought- Don't ever do that again. Whenever I'm scared, it goes straight to my belly, makes my insides shake liketofu. Bad enough I've had morning sickness three years' running. You should apologize."

Old One's eyebrows twitched just the smallest degree. The three silver hairs that sprouted from the wart on her chin quivered. It was all the outward sign she gave to acknowledge that her prayers had been answered: She had her weapon.

Swiftly she clapped a look of the utmost concern over her face and shuffled forward on her knees to seize the Empress' hands. "A thousand pardons, august lady!" she wailed, swaying like a willow in a gale. "May the gods forgive me! What hideous harm have I perpetrated upon your royal beneficence? Oh, what have I done? What have I done?"

"Whathave you done?" the Empress asked, yanking her hands free of Old One's grasp. Although she had demanded an apology, she hadn't expected anything on this scale. She still looked worried, not so much for Old One's sake as for her own safety in the presence of a demented creature.

"The shock, my lady! The shock that I have inadvertently caused you. Do you not know how dreadfully bad it is for the unborn when the mother suffers any sort of emotional upheaval? I have lived long; I could tell you stories. My great-aunt's neighbor's brother's third wife was frightened by a wild monkey, and her son was born with the longest arms you ever saw. Thenher father's nephew's sister-in-law was startled by a rampaging stork, and so her son was born with the longest legs you ever saw. Andher sister's husband's cousin's bride was surprised by a runaway rooster, so her son was born with the longest- Well, they're not all tragedies, but still, can any woman take a chance when it is the very body of her child that may be unalterably altered?"

The Empress' eyes grew wide and wider as Old One's words played upon her fears. The aged seer contained her glee. Although she still could scarcely believe Jingo's tale of her amazingly extended pregnancy was real, the younger woman certainly was behaving like other first-time mothers: She was crossing unfamiliar territory and she was afraid.

"The gods-" Jingo faltered. "The gods would not allow any harm to come to my son."

Old One pressed her palms together. "What do the gods consider to be 'harm'? Health is one thing, appearance another. Do they view matters of mortal beauty as we do? Are all of them pleasing to the human eye?"

"Raiden… Raiden, the god of thunder, has fangs," the Empress admitted. "And Fujin, lord of the winds, has a most… astonishing aspect. His skin is the color of pitch, his feet and hands are taloned, and his face-his face is- Ah!" She covered her eyes and moaned. "Oh, my child, my child!"

Slowly Old One got to her feet and patted the Empress' back. "Do not fear, my lady. It has been proven that the unborn is only marked according to the nature of the thing that frightened its mother. It's not as if you were scared by the wind-god; just by me."

Jingo's head jerked up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that if any change has befallen your child, he will enter the world looking no worse than this." Old One spread her arms wide and gave the Empress her broadest smile. Every wrinkle, every missing tooth, every bald patch, every brown spot and gnarled knucklebone and sag of slackened flesh on her body stood out in dreadful relief. Jingo gaped, then groaned.

Hmph! Thank yousomuch, Old One thought.Think you'lllook like a little plum blossom if you live to be my age? Keeping her resentment to herself, she reassured the Empress, saying: "Gracious lady, never fear! Your case is not hopeless. I can help you."

The Empress looked suspicious. "Why should I trust you or your remedies?"

"Think I'd poison you? Leave your troops without the one leader willing and able to fight a bloodless war? They'd run wild, burning crops, destroying villages, taking indiscriminate vengeance for your death on men, women, and children. Am I fool enough to make such a bad bargain for my people? The choice is plain: Trust me or trust to luck for your child's fate, O Empress."

Jingo rubbed her chin in thought for awhile, then said, "Tell me what you need."

The clay bowl nested amid the glowing charcoal cakes, smoking and sputtering. Old One knelt beside it, stirring it with an iron spoon. Seated on a low stool, attended by her captains and once again wearing full armor for its imposing effect, the Empress Jingo watched.

Her men watched too, but with more hostility than interest. Their Empress had explained the cause of these uncanny doings. Some muttered that Old One ought to forfeit her life for having frightened the Empress and perhaps imperiled her unborn son, but Jingo quickly silenced them.

"Perhaps no harm has been done to him," she told them. "That is what Old One seeks to learn first, by summoning a vision of the child. If all is well, why kill her? And if he has been affected, she will create a potion to set things right. To kill her for that would be ungrateful."

"No killing, no killing, that's her answer to everything," one of the captains grumbled. He glowered ferociously at the seething clay bowl and demanded: "What have you got stewing in there?"

"A measure of vinegar, another of water, the skull of a fieldmouse, powdered fine, fishbones and scales, a pinch of red earth, a dribble of pine sap, and a sliver of dragon's toenail: Nothing fancy." Old One grinned.

"Andthat mess will let us see our Emperor-to-be?"

"That mess-" Old One sniffed the steam rising from the bowl, then let her long sleeves slide forward to cover her hands as she removed it from the tripod and set it at Jingo's feet. "-and you." She bowed, then said, "O Empress, my lore can summon my gods, but your unborn babe is the descendant of your own divinities. To invoke a vision of the child, both companies of deities must aid us."

"But I've told you: This is the Month Without Gods! Thekami are in faraway Izumo-"

"Then you'll have to call upon themloudly, won't you?" Old One said. "You and all your troops together. When I give the sign, shattering the clay bowl, raise your voices and shout: O great kamiAmatasa- Amarusa-"

"Amaterasu."

"That's the one. Thank you. So it must go: O great kamiAmaterasu, with your blessing we beg to behold this unborn child as he truly is. Have you got that? It is vital that you speak these wordsexactly — you know how it is with magic-otherwise I couldn't be held responsible for the consequences."

The Empress repeated the seer's invocation several times, to make sure she had it down pat, then directed her captains to relay the words and instructions attending them to her troops. Signalmen were placed as the word ran through the length and breadth of the Japanese encampment. Old One watched it all, and while the commotion was at it's height she managed to steal a word with Snow Moon.

"Beloved child of my grandson's daughter," she murmured. "Very shortly, a small clay bowl will smash into a hundred pieces at the Empress' feet. When that happens-"

"— you want me to clean it up?"

"I want you to run."

Snow Moon was a good girl, biddable, raised to say yes first and to ask why twenty-third. Satisfied, Old One waited for the Japanese encampment to settle down. Then she bowed again to Jingo and simply said, "We begin."

It was a very impressive ceremony, one of Old One's best. She swayed and sang and made all sorts of fascinating gestures. She threw pinches of this and that into the smoldering coals, raising little spits of colored smoke. She chanted words in a tongue so ancient and arcane that even those Japanese fluent in Korean had no idea what she was saying. Neither did she. She let down her hair and used the wooden combs to trace strange patterns in the dirt, then danced over them. She carried on in this manner for a long time, until she saw the glazed stares of the onlookers and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that when she gave the signal, they would all cry out the words her plan demanded without hesitation, simply because they would shoutanything just to get this over with.

So she snatched up the bowl and smashed it at the Empress' feet; shards went flying. And from the uncounted multitude of troops, from the throats of the imperial captains, from the mouth of the Empress Jingo herself, there arose an obedient roar aimed for the ears of Amaterasu, demanding that the greatkami of the sun reveal the child as he truly was.

Izumo was very far away, but they werevery loud. Someone heard; someone who thought that so importunate a prayer was very like a direct order; someone who thought that after all She had done for Chuai's widow, it was highly impolite of the lady to come demanding things, especially during the Month Without Gods; someone who was just annoyed enough to change Her mind about the whole Korean expedition as quickly as a sunbeam darts from the Plains of Heaven to the fields of Earth.

Someone who thought that if She answered Jingo's prayer just as it was phrased, it would serve her right.

The gilded rivets holding the plates of the Empress'tanko exploded from their seatings with a sound like the crack of summer thunder. They whizzed in all directions, faster than an arrow's flight, pinging off the captains'tankos and helmets. The iron plates of the burst imperial cuirass hit the ground with an emphatic clang, soon followed by the reluctant rending of sturdy cloth. Yet all this uproar was no more than the whisper of petals falling on water when compared to the Empress' scream. It was not a scream of agony, but of shock, and betrayal, and red-eyed rage. And it wasloud.

Old One heard it only as a very faint and distant sound at her back. She had taken to her heels the instant after she'd smashed the clay pot to pieces. She was remarkably speedy for a woman of her age and she didn't stop running until she was in the midst of the Korean forces.

She had already called for an audience with the ruler of the kingdom of Silla by the time Snow Moon caught up with her, accompanied by a familiar third party.

"Who invitedyou?" Old One snarled when she saw a breathless Matsumoto Yoshi clinging to Snow Moon's arm.

"As an honorable warrior, I still consider myself to be this beautiful maiden's prisoner," he replied, panting. "Besides, I'm not stupid enough to face the Empress now. Not after what you did to her. Not until she forgets that I was the one who introduced her to you."

"That might take some time," Old One said. "I left her with rather a large memento of my visit." She shrugged. "I don't know why she's so angry. She's the one who wanted to know how her unborn child was doing."

"She thought she was asking Amaterasu for avision of the child," Matsumoto Yoshi said. "The child itself has had three whole years' growth in the womb!"

"Still in there, too. And her unable to give birth to it until the war is over," said Old One. "Tsk. You know, for a woman, and an Empress, and a general, she really ought to pay closer attention to how she words her commands."

The king of Silla emerged from his tent just then; Old One and the others bowed before him. "O great ruler," she said. "I am a seer and I bring you news: The war is ending. I promise you that shortly, word will come from the Japanese Empress herself, suing for peace."

The king had the haggard look of a man brought to the end of his rope by frustration. Such men mistrust good news, having been disappointed many times in the past. "Just like that?" he asked. "After all this time, all that water,now she quits? Why? Has she suddenly lost her stomach for war?"

"I wouldn't saythat," said Old One. "In fact, Icouldn't say that at all."