The monks again, she realized, glimpsing a flash of red and gold amid the lanterns they held aloft like little shrines.Why won’t they leave me alone?
“News has come to us from the royal city,” they were saying, voices rising from below. “Sent by the retired-emperor himself. We are on a holy mission, you see.” There was a pause.
“We were told the girl in your care, she was brought here years ago. She was not born of your little outvillage in Kitano. No?”
“She was raised by nuns,” Otsu said, carefully. “At the local temple.”
“And she was from where, before she was here? Not from the west? A town perhaps, called Azemichi?”
Otsu stiffened. “What do you want?”
“In truth, we’re looking for someone,” the squat monk said. “Not a no’in, no. Not one of you… Someone more important. Someone born in the west – perhaps, oh, twenty years ago? He would just be reaching his age…” The monk gave a little nod, like he was seeking confirmation for something. “And now? We hear this girl, this same, meaningless kusa who attacked us on the road, we hearshe was born there, too… You can see, it’s quite suspicious.”
“We know nothing of that,” said Otsu.
“I have knowledge she is of this village,” said the monk. “I’ve been sending letters. There is a record of her birth. In Azemichi.”
“We know none like that,” Koroku said now, emboldened by his wife. Rui gripped the sill, listening.
“Girl,” the old monk announced, loudly, to the night. “We forgive you for your insults! We merely want to talk.” He turned back to Koroku,speaking in a low voice that even Rui’s keen ears almost couldn’t hear. “We want to confirm some things. About events that… you could say… that brought her here. How she came into this village, nearly twenty years ago…”
Rui shrank back. The nuns hadn’t known everything, but they’d known enough. They’d known that her family had served the Gensei in Azemichi. Known that she was found, that night, when all the Gensei died. Known that she was rescued by the great poet, Yora Shijin, who had brought her here to live in safety, far from the conflicts of the court…
They’re looking for him, she thought.That boy.
Below, Otsu held her ground. “Look somewhere else. We want no problems here. We know nothing of any Azemichi.”
For a moment, Rui thought the monks would argue. They’d seen her, that day with the serow, after all. They’d somehow found out who she was. But now the head monk merely nodded, gave a muttered “As you say,” and made his leave.
“Tell me,” he said in parting. “I’m curious. The town of Azemichi. Do you know where it is?” Koroku shook his head blankly. Otsu stared. “It’s in the west,” the squat monk said. “Near the capital.” He bowed his head. “But that is neither here nor there. We’ll disturb you no more.”
Rui thought of the decree they’d held, a license from the retired-emperor to cross the lands of the realm. She thought again of the fury and the spite in his eyes, when he’d seen her, that day, as she tried to stop them from taking the sacred deer in the woods. Her heart fluttered. She wondered what would happen if they found her.
Finally, among the clamor of the cicadas, the monks turned onto the road, which would take them back through the outvillage and on, toward wherever they were going next. But before they left, the squat monk, his face strangely illuminated by the lanterns, glanced to the side of the barn and the stables, and his eyes landed on hers before she had a chance to pull away.
He stood there, like that, watching her from across the distance, as if he’d always known that she was there.
His eyes met hers again, and at the end, he gave a little nod. Then he turned, and headed off, toward the highroad that would lead him to the west, and to the mysterious retired-emperor who’d sent him his decree.
CHAPTERFIVE
Kai
Her clothes were wrong.
Seven of the twelve layers of Kai’s imperial dress had the incorrect color, and their lengths made her feel mismatched; nothing like the perfect folds worn by nobility who lived here in the capital full-time.
She stood at a mirror, fussing with her makeup to get it right. Fussing with her hair, her clothes. They were in the waiting room at the retired-emperor’s manse on the slopes of Mount Eizan, seat of his cloistered government, which ruled alongside the official one of his son, nineteen-year-old Emperor Ashihara. She’d come to offer a petition to the chancellor: give us back our land, she’d say. Allow me to reclaim my family’s home in Amayari. Make the Gensei governors again, as once we were, as Yora is on paper, but with the rights, the real powers, it demands.
No – don’t say demands, she told herself.They’ll take you for an upstart.
She was Kai Gekko’in after all, Kai of the Moonlight, firstborn daughter and heir of Katsusada Asa’in of the Gensei clanline, the traitor, the man who had nearly destroyed the realm. It would be hard enough as it was.
If only she could fix the clothes. She was twenty-seven now; she knew how to present herself, she knew the significance and the status that these clothes would bring. But she felt like an imposter wearing them. The layering was important – get the colors wrong, they’ll mark you an outsider.A child from the provinces, who didn’t know what she was doing. Get the colors wrong, they’ll laugh behind their gentle hands.
“Take care when you’re in public,” her stewardfather, Lord Zusho, had told her. “In the capital, even birds fly tittering to the regents. They’ll watch you, judge you, test if your loyalty is real.”
She knew the layered robes were expected of her, but couldn’t escape feeling like she’d be found wanting no matter what she did. So she rearranged the folds and pleats again. Her hair was pulled so tight it pinched. She’d felt the truth of her stewardfather’s words the moment she arrived; the wary guardsmen on the road, the workers at the banks of the river, and the eyes, hungry in a thousand different ways, that watched as she had entered the gate-of-the-world.We are kijin, her stewardfather said.Warriors.We do not ride in palanquins or flee to hide our face.She’d ridden high in the heat of the sun; merchants, peasants, the imperial guard, it made no difference. The eyes were watching her.
