Chapter 5: The Pledge

Qin Hanzhou did not thank her.

He tied his torn shirt around his waist, stood with one hand on the post, and said, "Tell me what you want."

"I want you to eat something and have a doctor look at your back."

"A doctor costs silver."

"I have silver."

"I don't take charity from Tang daughters."

"It isn't charity," said Shuyao. "It's a debt."

He stared at her.

A stable boy crept up with a cup of water.

Qin drank it and handed it back without taking his eyes off her.

"You are fourteen," he said. "You were born the year my father went north."

"Yes."

"Then how could you owe him a death?"

"I can't tell you," she said. "Not yet."

He looked at her for a very long time.

"Then I am not interested," he said. "Go back to your party, Miss Tang."

She went back.

She walked back through the east gate with her heart going and did not look behind her.

Her father had marched at dawn that day, by the salt-flat road, with his grumbling carts.

The next morning she told her grandmother that she wished to take one of the palace pledges as a stable hand.

"A pledge," said grandmother. "A hostage? Child, have you lost your mind?"

"The Northern Marquis's son is eighteen, and the palace stables whip him for losing horses."

"If the Tang house offers a roof, the palace will be glad of the rice it saves."

"And what does the Tang house get?"

"A good rider. And a favor from a northern marquis, in a year when Father is on the border."

Her grandmother looked at her for a long time, the way she looked at new accounts.

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