PARTTHREE
The Bridge of Heaven
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Yaeko
Shoho Year 4
Early winter
When she returned to Saikyo after her study at the Hermitage, Yaeko found her mother’s old house forgotten. It had been gifted to some noble of the fourth rank, an accountant, junior master of the books. One day soon after, she found herself standing before it as if seeing a ghost. She would have to make her own house, her own name, it seemed to say. A sound caused her to turn, and she stiffened when she saw her teacher, Yora, and her great benefactor, Seikiyo, on the busy street – the only warriors, it was said, they would ever let into the council. The two great men, born of war and now presiding over a decade of peace, had seemed so bright, so weighty, as they watched her and offered her a position in Akiyo’s mountain-wolves. Fighting a lump in her throat, she accepted. She was a soldier of the Keishi, she told them; she would do her job. She would move up. She would leave this all behind.
That morning, she’d been startled by the appearance of her teachers. This morning, she was startled by a hurried pageboy at her door. “Orders! From the palace!” the poor boy gasped. “It’s the monks, they’re at the gates. Trying to stop a messenger from getting through. You’re needed at once.”
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Tano Kitsue, of the Sanka-Gensei. An officer of the north gate. Ranthrough morning traffic shouting: ‘News! Urgent news for Lord Keishi! Let me in!’ The monks will try to take his head off.”
Now, following the breathless page, she found herself looking at the house again, perched and in decline, on the ninth street from the palace. It would soon be rebuilt and given to some other noble lord.Good, she thought.Leave the past. Eat it; let it feed you. Burn off what remains.
I have a job to do.
She hurried to the gate.
On First Avenue, people passed without seeming to notice. It was a busy day, but the weather had dropped. Clouds above whispered rain, gray skies dulled the colors of the street.
She remembered the cold, blustery day on the island of Sentaiji, when her mother took her from the Keishi school at the Hermitage, took her to the strange island nuns. She was a child then; she did what her mother said.I will redeem the great shame of our family, they made her vow.I will do what I have to do to end this reign and the corruption of the capital. I will stop the Keishi oppression once and for all.
Well, mother, father; ghosts: can you see me now? I grew up.
I owe you nothing.
Soon she heard the sounds of a commotion outside the north gate. A crowd had gathered. The guards had barred the doors in the face of a swarm of red-cloaked monks who were trying to get in, and in the midst of them stood a short, stocky warrior from the provinces, clamoring for entry. “Homage to the all-encompassing!” the monks shouted. “O-Muryou, one-of-wrath, eyes-of-heaven-and-earth – destroy the barriers to enlightenment!”
She found Shigeo gathering a bundle of papers at the gate. “Ryaku’in,” he said, seeing her. “He’s back. With his monks of the mountain…”
She cursed. “What is it now?”
“They demand the death of Moro, who offended them. Their rival. Ryaku’in’s a wanderer. My father had him exiled, and yet he’s back… claims we’re entering the Latter Age of the Law.”
“Monks fighting over laws is nothing new.”
“More like fighting over land. The temples have their own armies now; they know we can’t touch them.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
He shook his head. “They claim the retired-emperor places too much confidence in his advisor, Moro of the Gate. ‘Remove him,’ they say. ‘Remove Moro, and the Mountain will support Keishi authority in the capital.’ Now Ryaku’in has, apparently, returned. Says he carries secrets.”
Beyond the gate, square-built Ryaku’in stood no taller than her, but made up for it with his girth. A thick, bold face, a nose broken long ago, robes of black and gold.
“The signs are clear,” he announced, his voice grating over the stones. “Our divinations have shown! We are entering the third age, the Age of Plagues. The retired-emperor Goshira is the root of all corruption! He ruined his brother, the true emperor, Sutoh, whom they call a demon! The gall! They cursed him with death from the mountains of Takano!”
Behind him, the monks of the Mountain looked set to fight. Carrying their sacred relics and portable shrines, chanting, shouting warnings at the guards. An army of beige, hempen brown, black, maroon, and gold.
They go too far, she thought. The great temples had begun sending armed bands into the capital any time they wanted something to be changed. Not even Seikiyo could control them.
Ryaku’in waved to the crowd, spittle flying. “The defilements are everywhere! If you look in four directions, you will see the signs of evil!”
