By evening, Tano Kitsue had been released. The orders had been sent. Yaeko found Shigeo writing at his desk, and hesitated, waiting for the young man to dry his ink.
Finally, he sighed. “You know what my cousin used to say? Preaching like the enlightened on a public square: ‘It never matters what they think of you,’ he said. ‘You have to know what they’re afraid of.’ That’s what this is. What all this really is.”
“You think Goshira is behind this?”
“The windswept emperor?” Shigeo blew out his cheeks. “This is what hedoes.”
He peered across the narrow, winding streets and houses of the outer palace, houses made by ancient families, rich, privileged, untouched by war. A swathe of buildings cut across wide avenues with a view of the hills.
“All this burned down, once,” he said. “This place, this wood. Fires always come again.” His large black eyes met hers. “This means the end of the cloistered government. Goshira… My father will wreck him. It’s what he was waiting for.”
They walked below the walls, the trickling stream, the fishpond, trees that would give oranges and mulberries in the new year. The young lord’s voice caught in his throat.
“He asks too much of me, Yaeko. But what should I do? I cannot stand against my father. But I cannot stand against the retired-emperor. If I try to be faithful to Goshira, I cannot be a good son. If I try to be a good son, I cannot be faithful to Goshira.”
“I have no answers.” She reached for him. “I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes, I wish I was still at the Hermitage. Things were better there.”
“Things were simpler,” she said. “And we were very young.”
He took her by the shoulder, as though drawing strength. “Sometimes I think only the unlucky are born to live in these palaces… Oh, it’s a road that doesn’t end. It turns you into one of them… turns and turns… until, one day, suddenly you believe the stories. You believe the myths are true.”
He moved, as if to ask her something, a wordless plea she couldn’t understand. “Shigeo,” she began, but the pageboy appeared, interrupting them.
“They want you in the council, ame’in.”
Yaeko growled, “I’ll be there in a moment.” But Shigeo just looked away.
“Go,” he said. “Go. I’ll find my own way home.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
Yora
Yora watched, silent as a hawk, as Seikiyo signed the order. Long, graceful strokes, a brush on rustling paper, and it was done.
Deer Valley, mountain refuge of the Hara clan, was to be destroyed.
Shosei read the words. “‘By divine command, his majesty Ashihara Ten’in declares that our lord Keishi, Shosei of Isawa, is to raise an army in the name of the Heavenly Throne and subdue those who conspire against us.’”
The youngest Keishi was already calling to the yard. “Conspiracy!” Seichi shouted. “Betrayal!”
“Deploy your horsemen,” Shosei called.
Seichi led the assault. They churned up the slow-rising path that led to the mountain, to the low Deer Valley trail. Seichi shoved to the fore, snarling.Surrender, he shouted as they ran up against the gates. Concede now. By order of the Ten’in.
Already his soldiers had surrounded the villa and were preparing to break through the walls themselves. Mostly bannermen in service to the clan in Isawa, they were all but foreigners to the royal city, and had no reluctance in killing perfumed nobles of the court.
As Seichi’s blue armor flared in the sun, his men drew their swords and the gate was opened.
Yora, tight-lipped, remained at the back. Kaji Getoh and his guard floated nearby, but he had told them not to move unless he did. At themanor, Seichi held an arrow in his hand, waiting for a response. When none came, the youngest Keishi whistled sharply, digging his heels into his great black courser, and nocked his bow. His horsemen trampled the gate into the mud.
Yora forced himself to stay where he was, on the wood-lined turnoff from the road. “Do nothing.” Getoh grunted; his household remained as they were.
Inside the gates, fighting had begun.
There was no hope. Only a few of those who remained at Deer Valley had any martial training; they were nobles, not warriors. Yora angled up, saw a frozen piece of sky, the jagged tips of trees. A blinded sun.
