“This is the lord poet?” he’d gasped, canting about, fighting the overwhelm of what he’d done, mad with adrenaline and fear. “This is all he was? An old man!”
He’s going to be sick, Yaeko had thought. Yora was his teacher, too. Seichistaggered backwards, disgusted by the blade in his hand.
Then he rallied, and in a frenzy, Seichi took the sword, the Falling Star, and sawed off Yora’s head. Then strode to the edge of the pond and moved to toss it in.
“Lord, don’t,” Yaeko began, but it was too late. With a shout Seichi threw the head, a spatter of blood fanning behind, but his aim was off, and the head landed, rolling on the shore, and left a brown smear on the sand that had stuck to it.
Yaeko found herself crying silently as the Saikyo army marched back to make its report. Shosei left a garrison at the destroyed temple; his brother Seichi intended to burn the whole thing down.
“But let us see what father thinks,” he’d said. They left Yaeko there, with the guard, to finish cleaning up.
Now she had come back through the palace gates.
She found Shosei and Seichi sitting beside their father in the chancellor’s hall. Two prisoners, bound and kneeling, lay at their feet. The first Yaeko recognized as a young woman named Chiyome – Prince Nioh’s first-consort, and mother of his child. She had been captured at Deer Valley. The second was Satsuki-no-Ayame Hayo, Yora’s wife. Bandages circled her torso, her face drained of color but for the thin red rim of agony that lined her eyes.
For a moment, Yaeko couldn’t move.
With his high voice, Shosei addressed the consort, Chiyome, first. “You’ve been granted a clemency,” he announced. “We will allow you to take up the priesthood and live in exile in the northern islands. Or perhaps the Mountain of Rains. At Ametoge, if you would prefer. Present yourself to the monks up there. You may become a nun. We hold no malice against you, but you conspired against the chancellor, and risked his life, and the lives of his family. If you ever come back, the chancellor will be forced to lose his remaining compassion. Do you understand?”
Chiyome couldn’t speak. She was trembling, but she still did not cry. Her face blank with hatred. She could only nod.
“Send her away.” Shosei’s smile fell, like the dropping of a mask. His compassion had run its course. Chiyome cried out as they pulled her from the floor. Hayo tried to say something – a word of comfort, of strength – but whatever it was, it was lost amid the other woman’s shouts. The guards dragged Chiyome away, and the doors closed; Hayo alone remained, stiff and in pain from the Keishi arrows that had struck her.
“Ayame Hayo,” Shosei said. “We have called you here to let you know two things. First, we have decided not to kill you.”
Hayo wouldn’t look at him. Her eyes were to the floor.
Seikiyo, above them on his center seat, watched carefully, but said nothing.Why doesn’t he speak?Yaeko wondered.
“The second thing.” Shosei nodded to an attendant by the door. A square box came forward. “The rebel prince is dead. As is the Poet.”
They opened the box, placed it on the floor.
Hayo flinched with a spasm of emotion, then suppressed it. She didn’t utter a word.
Yaeko fought the urge to vomit. To fight, to shout at these men who brought such savagery into the palace.
She was about to step in, to intervene somehow, when she caught sight of the other woman’s face.
It was a subtle thing, yet far-reaching. Hayo looked at Seikiyo, his sons. Then, without speaking, she turned away.
“You will stay here,” Shosei continued. “We will allow you to take up the priesthood if you choose.”
“Oh, you give mechoices,” Hayo whispered, bitterly. “Now you give me choices.”
Seichi made as if to strike her, but his brother held him back.
“Yaeko,” Shosei said. “Get her a carriage. Bring her out. That’s all.”
Her guard came forward to carry Hayo through the doors. Yaeko wanted to say something, for Hayo had always been kind to her, but when she turned, she saw the rage in the other woman’s eyes.
Hayo spit in her face. “You know what you’ve done.”
When she left, Yaeko heard the aristocrats still arguing over the best way to burn down the temples of Naruji that had promised to help the rebel prince: old men shouting shrilly, pointing fingers at one another from under starched and heavy coats. All the while, Seikiyo, the lone warrior among them, remained silent, forced to keep his calm.
She was at the main entrance when the guards announced that Chiten Goshira had entered the palace.
He came in, flanked by his shrouded Tessoku. Yaeko bent to the floor with the others until the Chiten had passed, but when she rose, she found him arguing with Keishi guardsmen at the chancellor’s doors. Goshira, his people announced, wanted to be admitted. But the guards didn’t move. Their orders were to bar everyone until the councilors were done.
