Yao was violently jerked awake. His eyes shot open and he tried to peer through the darkness settling inside the carriage. Cold hands grabbed him and jerked him out, followed shortly by a woman's scream and a baby's wail. Yao looked around, his heart racing, trying to decipher what had occurred. In a moment he was gruffly grabbed by a different set of hands and yelled it in some language. Yao tried to respond but his voice died in his throat. Someone scoffed. He was tossed into the street and into a wet puddle, thus sprayed with mud.
Once he had adjusted to the dark and the final dregs of sleep had slipped away he could see what was happening. A group of robbers, masked and cackling, were tossing the luggage from the carriage. The woman continued to bawl along with her child, clutched tightly by the man. Yao raised himself on weak hands, lifting his stained arms. Night still draped the sky. The dirt road went on for ages, empty and surrounded by fields of grass. A faint light from some lamp gleamed in the far-off. The robbers then dispersed, holding gleaming riches and one of Yao's silks. Another held Yao's valise. Yao watched in horror. The carriage that they had ridden on was now without horses, leaning down and broken in several places. Rain had recently fallen, giving the wood of the carriage a layer of water droplets. Slowly Yao, shaken, stood up. He stepped back, holding his dirtied coat to him. It was all he had left, along with a book he had somehow kept a hold of. He recalled reading through it before dropping off to sleep in the carriage.
The woman had ceased crying and pressed her infant to her breast, trying to quiet him. The baby shook and eventually was warmed by the mother's sweet touch. The husband looked on gloomily, baffled by his intense misfortune.
Yao felt pain stabbing his side. He limped down the street, up until the point when the road split into two directions. He looked out and on, a sinking feeling in his chest.
Coming up behind him, the husband tapped his shoulder. Yao turned around, his rumpled hair flying into his face.
In broken Russian, the man asked for advice.
Yao bowed his head.
"I really don't know. I'm sorry, sir." At length, he added; "Maybe we could walk to a village and ask for help there."
The man said that it would be a long way off and his wife was terribly fatigued by the fright. She then, at that moment, approached them and looked from one to the other, her eyebrows knitting together.
"Salvage what we can from the carriage and we shall walk. I can endure that much." She said, in German. The husband nodded and went timidly back to the carriage. It became quite apparent to Yao—despite not being able to understand the language—that the man was at his wife's ever beck and call. He was under a taut rope and still he enjoyed every moment of it. His wife was his life and his love. She knew that and returned the admiration.
Yao caught himself going off on the reverie and brought himself back to reality. The woman looked at him severely, her face full of gravity. She had a broad, plain face with plain eyes and smooth hair tied back. It had a quality of motherly power, however, that was worn and aged in the past few minutes. She shifted the baby in her arms and sighed, not knowing what to do anymore.
She parted her lips to speak, but was cut off by the rumbling sound of dozens of horses coming close. Yao stepped to the side and saw in the distance a group of people were riding towards them.
The man returned, holding a scarf that had fallen from the goods. He was a small, hunched over man who moved timidly and hesitantly, as though each moment decided the rest of his life.
In moments the horses reached over. Slipping off the nearest horse was the apparent leader. He approached and Yao was taken quite aback. The man was short, shorter than he, and had curled brown hair that framed his rounded face. His smile was pure and childish, somehow polite. His outfit was that of a soldier's: boots to his knees and light-colored jackets and pants. His epaulets were bright red, however.
"Hello," he said in German, and then in Russian, and then in some strange language Yao could not identify.
"Russian, please," Yao said.
"German," the woman interjected.
The man nodded and, first in German and then in Russian, introduced himself as Toris. He claimed to have been coming over for political meetings and for some masked ball that would happen later on. When he saw the ruined carriage he had to stop.
"Is it possible that you could take us to Vienna?" Yao asked. The couple agreed that they, too, needed to be in Vienna.
"Of course, we have two extra horses." Toris turned and some of his fellow men brought up the two horses. They were fat, but also quite beautiful. Yao took the white one and leaped up onto it, pressing down with his thighs since it lacked a saddle. The couple took another one for themselves. The woman held her infant all the closer, creating a sort of cradle with her scarf.
"Follow along, this shan't take long!" Toris called happily, as though he was in the prime of his life. He did not seem to be such a young fellow anymore. He seemed to be reaching his later twenties, Yao conjectured, but he was so full of life he was certain that he would be just as jolly when he was an old man.
Yao ended up directly behind Toris, watching his curls bounce with every bump in the horse's trot. Something drew him to Toris. Some sort of invisible, thin string tied their fates together.
Yao focused so much on this that he hardly realized that the sun had finally risen and spread light through the skies. He noticed even less when they reached the beautiful city of Vienna. Leaving the horses, the couple thanked Toris profusely. Toris only laughed and told them to think nothing of it, and to go on their own accord and have good luck.
Yao then began to depart but Toris stopped him, gently touching his shoulder. Yao paused, looking up expectantly at the soldier. The soldier's smile smoothed away.
"There is a masquerade coming up very soon. It will be here, in Vienna. If you'd like to come I have an extra invitation for you. It will be in two weeks' time. With such a pretty face, it'd be a shame if you didn't go."
Yao's lips twitched and, without realizing it, he found himself accepting the invitation. He felt that he would be stuck in the country for a long time yet. His homeland would have to wait a while yet. The letter was slipped away into his coat and he walked away, looking for a place to stay. He had a small pouch of money and other than that he was a homeless spirit wandering the world. If only he knew German.
Something, in that trip, caused his heart to harden. He no longer felt like a youth. No longer did he feel like a lovelorn exotic bird brought into a cold climate. He felt somehow older, somehow more mature.
Eventually Yao did find somewhere to stay; in an old, unused barn in the country side just outside of Vienna. His legs burned from walking and his nose felt cold after being out in autumn wind for so long. In the barn, he discovered, in the dimming evening light, that some soldiers had left their supplies there. He found packages of bread and ate one, leaving several coins in their place.
After that, he fell asleep on a cot, cuddled into his coat. Mud was matted onto it and he could pinch it off.
In the morning, after another small ration of bread, he wandered around the barn. Some soldiers must have raided it to sleep in, kicking out the farmers in the processes. Outside, the fields were expansive and bright. It caused him to cook up a mean mood and so he returned.
There a pan leaned against the wall, catching Yao's reflection. Each time he passed it he saw his long hair flow behind him. Each time it bothered him more and more. Eventually, with his hardened spirit, he dropped to his knees before it, a knife in hand, and raised his silky black hair to the side. He drove the knife through and cut it off. The tufts fell to the floor like the black feathers a raven sheds. Now his hair reached just below his shoulders. He tied it up with a length of rope and closed his eyes, pressing his palms to the floor.
He wanted to go home.