Wild Orchid (8 page)

“Is that why my father dislikes me so much?” I asked. “Because I look just like my mother?”

“It’s nothing so simple,” General Yuwen said. “And I don’t believe that your father dislikes you, Mulan. But looking at your face does remind him of what he has lost. I don’t think that can be denied.”

“But it could remind him of other things too, couldn’t it?” I asked. “It could remind him of happier times.”

“It could,” acknowledged General Yuwen. “And I hope as he gets to know you better that that’s exactly what it will do. But you must give it time, Mulan.

“I know thirteen years must seem like a very long time to grieve, but I was beside your father when word came of your mother’s death. I heard his heart break in sorrow. I’m not sure there’s enough time in all eternity to mend a wound like that. There is only the will and the discipline to carry on. Your father possesses those qualities in abundance.

“But holding fast to discipline makes it hard to reach for anything else, even if you wake up one day and discover you might want to.”

“Why does my daughter always seem to be either in or about to fall into that stream?” I heard a deep voice inquire from behind me.

General Yuwen and I both gave a start and turned.

Hands on hips, looking as tall as a monolith, my father was standing on the bank above us.

S
EVEN

“It’s all my fault,” General Yuwen said easily. He got to his feet and helped me to mine. “Just as it’s my fault if Mulan has spoiled her fine new clothes. I wanted to show her something, and this was the best place to do it.”

“Huh,” my father said. This seemed to be his favorite remark. But he did not ask what General Yuwen had wanted me to see, and for this I was grateful. I hadn’t yet decided how I felt about looking so much like my mother.

“You should come home to dinner,” my father said now. “Min Xian wondered where you two had gone. I was afraid she would start fussing.”

“By all means, let’s return, then,” General Yuwen said. He glanced in my direction, and I thought I saw him wink. Could my father have actually been worried about me?

“I don’t know about you, Mulan, but all of a sudden I’m starving.”

“Min Xian’s food is always excellent,” I said.

“Huh,” my father said again. He turned to go. But then something unexpected happened. The bank was
wet, the result of the recent rains, and as my father put his weight onto his back leg, he slipped. His leg gave way and my father fell heavily to the ground. Before either General Yuwen or I could take a step, my father was rolling down directly toward us.

General Yuwen moved swiftly, placing himself between my father and the water. There was a grunt of impact as their bodies connected, followed by a moment of silence as the two friends lay sprawled on the shelf above the water. At General Yuwen’s motion I had scrambled back, out of the way. Now I moved swiftly to kneel down beside the two men. General Yuwen was the first to sit up.

“Are you all right?” I asked anxiously. My father still lay upon his back. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Of course I’m not hurt,” my father said gruffly. “It will take more than a fall to wound an old campaigner like me.” He frowned suddenly, and I followed the direction of his eyes. To my shock I saw that I was holding his hand between both of my own, gripping it tightly.

My father lifted his eyes to mine.

“I thank you for your concern, Daughter,” he said.

I released his hand. “You are welcome, Father.”

“At least now
all
of us are muddy,” General Yuwen spoke up, his voice as sunny as a spring morning.

At this my father began to roar with helpless laughter. It didn’t take long before General Yuwen and I joined him. All three of us sat in the mud of the stream bank, laughing until our sides ached.

“What’s the matter? Are you injured?” Over the sound of our laughter, I heard Li Po’s anxious voice.

“We are not injured,” my father said as he reached to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes. Unfortunately, this only smeared more mud across his face.

“We are muddy and hungry and we are going home to eat,” my father continued. “And you are coming with us. Come and help me up, Li Po.”

Eyes wide in astonishment, Li Po climbed carefully down the bank. Together he and General Yuwen helped my father to his feet. But when my father went to take a step, his right leg buckled once more. Were it not for the fact that the others held his arms, he’d have collapsed to the ground.

“You
have
hurt yourself,” I cried. “I’ll bet the fall pulled your stitches out.”

I watched my father grit his teeth against the pain. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, stop it,” I said. “This is no time for heroics. You do so. Now,” I went on, addressing Li Po and General Yuwen, “you help him home, being as careful of that leg as you can. I’m going on ahead to tell Min Xian to boil plenty of water. If those stitches have come out, we’re going to have to sew up the wound again.”

Gathering my skirts like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes, I sprinted up the bank and set off for home.

By the time the other three arrived, my father’s
face was tight with pain and Min Xian and I had a bright fire going in the kitchen. A pot of boiling water sent up a soft cloud of steam. Li Po and General Yuwen eased my father into a chair near the fire.

“I want to see that wound,” I said.

“Very well,” replied my father.

A quick examination proved my worst fears. My father’s fall had yanked out his stitches. “We need to clean this and then resew the wound,” I said.

“I do not need to be bathed like a child,” my father snapped.

I took my tongue firmly between my teeth and stepped back.

“Suit yourself,” I said. “How you get that wound clean I leave to you. The new stitches you will leave to me. Min Xian’s stitches would be prettier. But my eyes are stronger and my hands are steadier.”

“Huh,” my father said. He looked up at me for a moment, his gaze unreadable. “Huaji can clean the wound. Let’s get on with it.”

By the time my father’s wound was clean, Min Xian and I were ready. I had passed my best sewing needle through a candle flame to sterilize it, and then I’d threaded it with a length of my strongest thread. But as I took my place at my father’s side, I began to worry that my hands would shake despite all my brave words.

I stared at the gash across my father’s right leg. General Yuwen had been right. The wound was not healing properly. The edges still were angry and red.
Though I knew the general had cleaned it carefully, I put a cloth into the steaming water, feeling the way its heat stung my hand. Then I pressed it to my father’s wound, testing his strength and mine. The flesh of his leg quivered as if in protest to my touch, but my father never made a sound.

Just get on with it, Mulan
, I thought. I set the cloth back into the dish of water and took up my needle and thread.
This is a seam, just like any other
.

Straight seams I had always been good at. Straight seams I understood. I appreciated them; they were the best way to get from here to there. It was the fancy stitches that served no purpose.

“I will hold a light for you,” General Yuwen said.

“Thank you,” I answered.

Li Po brought a cushion. “For your knees,” he said.

I shifted back so that he could slip the cushion beneath them.

“I will begin now, if you are ready,” I told my father.

“I am ready,” he said.

I pulled in one deep, fortifying breath, set the needle to the edge of the wound, and began to stitch.

Afterward I was not certain how long it had taken, for time seemed first to slow and then to stop altogether. There was only the sound of my father’s breathing, quick and light. General Yuwen shifted position once or twice, ever so slightly, so that my hands never worked in shadow but always
in clear, bright light. And so I came to the end of the wound and knotted off the thread, snipping the extra with my embroidery scissors. I got to my feet, trying to convince myself that my knees weren’t shaking.

“There. That’s done,” I said.

My father sat perfectly still for a moment, looking at the stitches I had made.

“It is
well
done,” he said, correcting my words and praising me at the same time. Then he lifted his eyes to mine. “I thank you, my daughter.”

For the first time since the day we’d met, I looked straight into my father’s eyes.

“I am glad to have been of service to you,” I said. “And I am happy to have pleased you, Father.”

“It would please
me
,” General Yuwen put in, “if you’d stay off that leg for a while. Give Mulan’s fine stitches a chance to do their work.”

“Why is everyone so bossy all of a sudden?” my father asked. “I’m hungry.”

General Yuwen laughed, and set the lamp down. “So are we all. Let Mulan wash her hands, and then we will eat.”

The four of us ate together right there in the kitchen, gathered around the fire, General Yuwen, Li Po, my father, and I. The light of the fire played over all our faces as we devoured Min Xian’s good food.

It was the happiest moment of my life.

General Yuwen left at the end of the week with Li Po riding beside him. Li Po promised he would write as soon as he was settled in Chang’an. I was eager to know all about the city and the duties he would perform there.

That day I awoke early, as soon as the red streaks of dawn began to mark the sky. I lit a stick of incense and said a prayer to the Hua family ancestors, asking them to watch over Li Po and General Yuwen, to keep them safe from harm. Then I put on my best dress in honor of their departure, vowing silently that I would keep it clean. I was out in the courtyard watching the sun come up when General Yuwen found me.

“Good day to you, Hua Mulan,” he said. “Are you making the sun rise?”

“You are the one doing that, I think,” I answered with a smile. “For she wants to keep an eye on you, to see you safely back to Chang’an.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” the general said. “Will you walk with me to the stables, Mulan? There is a gift I would like to give you, if you will accept it.”

“With pleasure,” I said.

We walked to the stables in companionable silence.

General Yuwen’s horse gave a whicker of greeting at the sight of us. The general produced a slice of apple from a hidden fold in his garments, offering it on a flat palm. Then he went to where his saddlebags lay ready to be strapped to the horse’s sides. General Yuwen took something from among them and then turned back to me. I caught my breath.

It was a bow. The finest I had ever seen, the wood so smooth it seemed to glow. He held it out.

“Let me see you try it,” the general said.

I took it from him, feeling the weight of it in my hands.
He did not have this made for me
, I thought. I could tell that this bow had been designed for someone taller and stronger than I was. But I had no doubt I would be able to make it shoot true, if I practiced enough. Li Po had taught me to shoot using his own bow.

I set my feet, as Li Po had taught me, lifted the bow, and pulled the string back, taut. I held it there until my shoulders sang with the effort it took to hold the string straight and still. Then I eased it forward again, lowering the bow.

“That was well done,” General Yuwen said. “I knew I had made a good choice.” He turned back to the saddlebags and produced a quiver of fine-tooled leather filled with arrows. “These belonged to my son.”

My mouth dropped open before I could stop it. “Oh, but,” I stammered. “Surely Li Po …”

“Li Po is as fine an archer as I have seen,” the general agreed. “You were absolutely right on that point. Nevertheless, I am giving this to you, Mulan. I would like you to have something to remember me by. But more than that …”

He paused, and took a breath. “I would like to give you something to help you to remember yourself. To remember the dreams that you hold in your heart. I
will be taking Li Po far away from here, and as a result you will be lonely. Perhaps this will help.”