“We will not let traitors into the palace grounds, monk,” she shouted.
“I am no betrayer,” Ryaku’in said. “I speak only truth.”
“Hell take your truth. Go back!”
“Listen, Yaeko Eiga,” called the monk. “And you, son of Keishi. The enlightened see you.”
“I’ve nothing to hide,” Shigeo said. “Make way!”
“Lord! Lord!” The young warrior, Tano Kitsue, pushed his way through the throng. Monks bellowed, barring his path.
“Bring him in!” Yaeko had to shout to be heard over the crowd. The guards rushed in, shoving monks away right and left, but it was like trying to push through waves. They were everywhere. “Back! Back!”
The monks tried to stop Kitsue from entering, and the young guard called out in terror. Shigeo drew his sword. “You intrude upon imperial grounds, monk! Step forward and there will be blood!”
“There is blood already,” Ryaku’in cried. “Tell your father what I want. Tell him to come back to the table. No more need be spilled.”
“Be gone,” Shigeo ordered.
“Tell him,” Ryaku’in repeated. “Tell him:we have a deal.” And with a hiccuping laugh, the square-built monk stepped sideways, and finally, the others let Kitsue through.
“What does he want?” muttered Shosei, the round-faced middle Keishi son. He looked younger than his thirty-three years. “This little man.Kitsue? Tell us, and get him out of our sight.” His younger brother Seichi sat idly by the dais, watching, with a dagger in his hands.
“Our lord poet has been searching for conspiracies,” Yaeko said. “It appears he found one.”
The Sanka-Gensei were even more removed from the capital than the rest of the Gensei clan, Yaeko knew. People like Shosei called them barbarians still, for rumor had it they were related to the old Iteki who assimilated, whose roots went deep in the woodlands of the north and east. A few hundred years before, the Gensei – ancestors of the current lineage – had been tasked with subduing so-called barbarian clans, and brought treaties of peace to the Iteki, joining them into their service as hunters and trappers, and hired swords who were not afraid to get their hands dirty in the provinces. Over time, those assimilated houses became truly part of the kijin-tai, and the clanlines all had ancient links with the warriors of the past. Some said the wild blood had never left them. “They mark their skin with ink,” her tutors at the Hermitage had told her. “And paint themselves in a cruel mockery of court customs.”
Well, Yaeko thought now.I am kijin too.I am a warrior. To them, to those nobles, I will always be just another barbarian, manners be damned.
That is what Seikiyo has worked so hard to change.
“Speak,” Shosei called, all at once. His topknot had started to come loose, she noticed, and his voice rose slightly, as it always did, as though tinged with panic.
“Lord,” Tano Kitsue bowed, rambling, “I bring news… from the regent’s house, lord… Where’s your father?”
“Tell us what it is, man,” Seichi grumbled. “Before our father comes.”
Tano rose: “I speak only to him.”
“You will speak to us.”
Tano laughed. “And who are you? The Keishi brothers? The last dogs of old Isawa? Tell me, amé, where’s the noble son? Where’s Shigeo? Why should I speak with you, who never lived within the capital before?”
“We are your betters, Tano of the Gensei line.”
“But I am not. They are my parent house—”
“The Shark?” Seichi scoffed. “That is what they call you, no? ‘Tano, Shark of Sanka-Gensei…’”
“I care not. I was sent to serve theHara—”
Seichi gave a snort. “As if that’s better.”
“Fine. Do what you will,” Tano said. “But your father, he’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
They sat for half an hour, each side glaring in the stalemate, with theSanka-Gensei scowling at them with his arms crossed about his chest, Shosei fidgeting his soft fingers, and Seichi, bored, simply sharpening his knife with his feet propped up. At last, the big doors opened and Seikiyo entered with Shigeo at his side. “Speak,” he said brusquely. “Tell your story.”
“Lord,” Tano said, still glaring at the brothers. “I come with a confession, lord, and a promise. It was me, brought in for my service to the regent house. The Kyohara clan. They aren’t happy. They wish to see their powers of regency restored.”
