10
“Men make plans,” the serpent told them in the time between, “and the Gods laugh.”
China
c. 1000 B.C.E
My cousin arrives in the world squawking his indignity at being squeezed from the warm embrace of his mother. “Yam,” they claim I said when I saw him for the first time. This I have no memory of as I was only in my second year, but the name remains.
My family lives under the protection of my great uncle, the old Emperor, so Yam and I spend much of our time exploring.
“Come here, Yam, and look,” I say as we stand on the dike between the flooded fields of rice. He joins me, and I point to where the slick wet back of an otter slides over the bank.
“Big snake,” he tells me.
“An otter,” I correct.
Other times we race on horseback up and down the foothills or hunt hares armed with b
