He feared his father’s intentions, the girl saw. He feared his father’s greed. But the glory of the Keishi lay in victory, not defeat; the conspiracy was crushed. Their place secure. Only a few small people had to die. And now he was caught in a vise, between his father, Seikiyo, and his mentor, Goshira, who had always been his friend. It had been the Chiten who’d matched him with Nariko. Who’d blessed them with white salt.
I have tried, he said, to his friends,to cause my father to restrain the evil leanings of his heart. I have tried to bring the realm enduring peace. But we’ve seen what’s followed. I can do no more.
He went to Mount Takano, prayed for days on end. The girl watched from the shadows, from inside the walls. When he returned to the city, he found that Goshira had taken Nariko’s lands and increased pressure on the Keishi in retaliation for Deer Valley.
He fell ill a few days later. He was promised to attend the consecration of the new-emperor’s name, but could not. He stayed home. He sent the doctors away. He decided to become a monk, as his eldest brother had so many years before, after Asa’in’s rebellion.
The relationship between Seikiyo and the Chiten, such as it was, had fallen apart.
Soldiers with the Keishi butterfly flying high in the winter breeze surrounded the Chiten’s manse. They brought him a new decree: they confined him to his home.
The girl watched it all.
Now it was time.
“Who is this one?” she asked. In the new, blue light of dark, her sister answered.
“A son,” said the woman in white, “who has fallen very ill. With rage. With heartbreak. With sin. He wants to leave this place. He seeks to enter the priesthood, to find a better life. We must help him.”
So the girl wandered; she approached the old, grand house. She entered through the garden.Yes, she thought.So quiet here.So calm, so peaceful.
She heard shouts from within; big men, scary soldiers: household guards with knives.
When the doors opened and they came at her, they slowed in shock. For she was just a girl, and they were large, and not yet full of hate.
She said, “Hello.”
When she left the house, there weren’t any soldiers anymore.
She went back outside. The air was ice; her hands dripped. She sat, at the bottom of the lawn, by the grass and the stream and trees.
And she waited until the gold turned red in the sky, then darker, blue-violet, and burned like flame.
She waited until the hollow-eyed young man came home.
The garden gate: it was opening, glinting with its finely painted arch. Theclickof the latch, the creak of wood.
Shigeo came into his garden, pausing when he saw her. Was it surprise? Anger? Fear? She smiled.
Above her the plum tree stood defiant against the cold. It had waved at her, during the windy sundown, before the light had gone; it waved even now, when the shadows seemed to move behind him, and the sky fell bright with stars. The air grew colder still.
“Shigeo,” she said.
The man made half a step, in shock, in awe, in a different kind of fear. His hand went to his sword.
“Shigeo,” she said, again. “We came.”
Beside her, her sister in white looked down. The child moved back, quietly. And watched.
“Who are you?”
The girl made her little smile, hop-skipped to the pond, and sat, head between her knees, to see the fish.One, two, three. That one, specked with gold.
“Hello, lord,” her sister said.
“Who—”
He’d tensed; the girl turned up from the fish in time to see it. His eyes, flashing to the garden door, the deck, the veranda; the empty silence of his house. The candles had been lit; no movement. He was going to call out. He was waiting for his guard. They’d never come.
