Chikae considered this. “My loyalty is to the legitimate government.”
“Which means what, to you?”
“Goshira has no official status anymore,” Chikae said smoothly. “Let the old man grow angry if he wants, but let him do so in the comfort of his home. He need not have a voice.”
By the end of the day, she had been named official guardian to the infant Seitoku. Her adopted son, Onoe Naotora, was promoted into Seikiyo’s new Council of Four, and the next day Goshira was put under house arrest and young Emperor Ashihara made a final, poetic speech about his decision to step down.
“My heaven-blessed son, whose true name was Noriyasu, will succeed me,” he said to the crowd of ministers. “He accedes and becomes Seitoku Ten’in Soramitsu, sky-seen, of the Thousand Autumn Throne in our realm under heaven. May he live a long and happy life.”
That night, Yaeko stood silent as a stone guardian outside Seikiyo’s hall. Within, the Keishi leader muttered, walking in circles. Nightmares and memories invaded his rest, and it brought a pain to Yaeko’s heart to hear him suffer. But he could never show anyone in the court – he hardly showed his children. He spoke, mumbling, pacing as if talking to someone who wasn’t there. At the hour of the ox, Yaeko found him staring out the open window, to the garden.
“Do you see them?” he asked sadly. “Or is it only me?”
“See what, lord?”
“The skulls.”
Outside, the garden lay quiet, buried in winter. The apricot tree he planted years ago stood barren in the corner.
“I… see nothing, lord.”
He gave a small, painful laugh.
“It’s the gods. Every night. They speak to me, and I cannot understand. The old words say a sign of flames will save the future of this family… but I cannot see it. They speak in riddles, Yae. Games. They’re mocking. Or… warning me of something… By the time the sun rises, they’re gone. I’ll get no sleep tonight.”
“Let me find the Poet,” she began.
He waved her off. “Do you enjoy the western tea, Yae? Here, have some. You see… old warriors, those of us who survived…” His hands folded themselves on heavy sleeves. “The monks say it is not for us to see such horror and come through unscathed. Yora was right.”
He didn’t say the rest. Didn’t say, I am plagued by ghosts of men.He wants someone to help him, Yaeko thought. Instead, he sat in silence, rubbed a smooth, black pebble between thumb and forefinger.
“He lied to me,” he said at last. “Yora. He said the boy was dead. He knew, then, what was in my heart.” A hand before his face, the knuckles, spots. “After so many years I do not recognize myself. Whowantsto kill a child? Yet now…” The change in his voice seemed to be one of determination. “It seems that I was right. I mean to make you part of our army, Yae. You will be with Shosei. He’ll need guidance, when the time comes.”
“You believe there will be war?”
“There’s always war.” He placed the kettle back over a dying flame. “I don’t know what’s coming. I see things, a white woman in the smoke. There are rumors. A demon from the east. She’s come this way. She’s coming to us… I fear she may have already struck.”
When he turned to her, Yaeko saw that he was crying.
“I mourn the violence I must do, Yaeko. I try… so hard… to makesure the realm is strong again, strong to resist all the division, the factions squabbling for power… Only a sure hand can stop this death. Or else every country lord is going to get ideas in his head that he might pay some ruffians to kill for him, and they’ll all become kings. It’s madness. Just madness.”
He poured the remains of his tea into the fire, sending clouds of ash toward the ceiling. He whispered, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear.
“I have to stop it.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
Kai
“Tell me, lady, why should I be meeting with my enemy?”
Kai asked the question formally, and with respect where no respect was due. She’d not been pleased to find Yoshiko Keishi at the entrance gate, not pleased to answer when they told her of a message that had come.
Not just a message.The chancellor’s wife herself.
A patch of red spearflowers rustled in the frosty breeze. She eyed them, thinking, worrying, felt a prick of fear.She’d stayed as quiet as she could. Like a recluse, for weeks. Her status in the capital was nothing now, disintegrated, after her audience with the chancellor; no one would let her close. Not in the palace, not anywhere. Finally, she’d abandoned the court in frustration, staying with aunt Hayo at her home.
Hayo had been uncertain and uncharacteristically on edge; Kai had once or twice even seen her polishing her own swords, just as sharp as her uncle Yora’s, though shorter and somehow hungrier because of it. Two slim blades like slivered moons in the night, and aunt Hayo had seen her watching, nodded slowly, and slid the blades silently into their sheaths. There was a soft click as the swords drove home, and Hayo had left one of them at the foot of Kai’s bed, with a whisper: “Just in case.”
