Seikiyo Jokai, of the First Rank, was now sixty-eight, the most powerful man in the empire below the Ten’in. Their emperors. He’d shaved his head – among the nobles, taking tonsure and the priestly vows was largely a symbolic act, but as lord of one of the three great clanlines, for Seikiyo it was essentially required. It was also said, however, that as chancellor, he now held the entire realm in the palm of his hand. In his youth, Seikiyo had been a man of appetites, famous for his fury and eager for blood; as a child of the western Keishi, he knew the waters of the inland sea better than the highroad to the capital, but as the years had passed, he’d turned his attention inward, to the center of his sovereign’s command. Yora now wondered if any of the Keishi’s soul still wished to wander through the waves, for before him stood a pale man, gaunt, yet strong of bone. Aged, not withered. Burdened, but not defeated yet.
“Poet,” Seikiyo called in greeting, and gestured:Walk with me.
They strolled the colonnade for half an hour, watching painted ferns, little flowers, and the flutter of a lonely butterfly. Slowly, Yora made his report. The growing power of provincial lords had been a thorn in the government’s side for generations, and now, as more and more landowners consolidated their rights into ever-greater estates, it had come to a kind of crisis.
“You were right,” he said. “There may be problems with the lords.”
“In Gisan?”
“The Gisan alps, the Kanden plains. The estates there have underrepresented their yields.”
“So, they steal from us,” Seikiyo muttered.
“Lord, the people there, they suffered in the wars…”
“They supportedhim.”
He did not need to say the rest. There was only onehimfor Seikiyo.My brother.
Will we never move on, Yora thought,or will it color the rest of our lives?
The old ones said the past was never gone; perhaps they were right.It lives within us still, he thought:each day brings its own ghosts. Each day the wounds reopen.
“Unrest,” Seikiyo said. “It’s a cancer, it eats us from within. We need religious stability in times like these.”
“We do, lord.”
“What of the Mountain?”
Yora slowed. He was filled with a sudden urge to throw down his report, go to his friend, and ask,What ails you?But he couldn’t. His lord was surrounded, with his high rank, by the bells of glory and its stains.
“The governors are still dealing with estates on the eastern barrier. Our incomes from the farms there have been… disrupted. Even members of court, who hold interest in them, are starting to have problems with their local lords.”
Seikiyo scowled, but said nothing.
“Why have you really called me here, lord?” Yora saw the lines under Seikiyo’s eyes, saw the shadow in his gaze. Something was weighing on him, he knew, something that hadn’t been before – or perhaps, thought Yora, something thathadbeen there, yet subtly, slowly growing all the while.Too many know of Keishi arrogance and pride; not many get to see the heart.
“I know what you would say.” Seikiyo’s voice had grown thicker this last year, deeper with its gravel edge. “And I would agree with you. It’s the court. They spend too long in the confines of this place, growing fat and happy with their poems and their songs. And what does the Ten’in do? He is emperor, and yet…”
“Yet I’ve written poems for all of them,” Yora said. “So, what does that make me?”
The two men regarded each other for a moment, then at last Seikiyo broke into a smile. “Welcome back, old friend. I hope your journey wasn’t difficult.”
“Five provinces in as many weeks. And I complain of being tired, when young men wish to see the world… Still, nice to sleep in one’s own bed again.”
They walked the long hall between the emperor’s greeting room and the main chambers. “They say the emperor is a ship,” Seikiyo muttered quietly. “And the subjects are like water. So, we must be very careful not to let the waves grow too great, or we’ll be capsized in a storm.”
At the end of the long hall there was a window, and there Seikiyo stopped, giving Yora a look as open as the palms of his hands. “The courtiers. They come up with excuses. They say the fields have not been bearing crops the last few years… They know we have too many estatesto watch over, and must rely on local deputies for help… Of course they say they cannot pay.”
“There has been famine,” Yora offered. “That part was not a lie.”
“Famine.” Seikiyo waved it off. “Don’t talk to me of famine. I’ve schemers and snivelers enough to tell me that. I have an entire council to tell me about the woes of the agricultural estates.”
“It does not mean they’re wrong, lord.”
He smiled, ruefully. “You are a pesky fly, you know that? And sometimes, I think, the only one who speaks the truth. You never answered, about the Mountain.”
Yora paused, for this was a delicate subject, and one much closer to home. The Mountain and the Gate, the two largest temple sects, lay at their doorstep, on Mount Eizan, whose shadow lingered above the city even as they spoke.
