“My dead family,” Sen said.
Later, he followed his stewardmother to the terrace overlooking the city and the temple being built. She did not speak, not at first, merely sat with her eyes cast out, over the hill of Kitaiji, the fortress, and the barrier gate and the city below. The fields there, the land, and the people. She had a feather in her hand, weaving it lightly between her fingertips.
“This incident with the monks is more unsettling than I realized,” she said at last, meeting his eyes. “We must be cautious now.”
“The monks?” Sen asked. “They’ve been gone for weeks.”
“Nevertheless,” she said. “I’m sending you to Jobo Daiten. For your safety. You are to ask for him to take you on as a disciple.”
He couldn’t read the emotion behind her voice. The crow monks, and their leader, Jobo Daiten, had helped bring Sen here in secret all those years ago. But they were a mystery to him. They rarely came into the city, and instead trained in hidden arts of swordsmanship from their monastery in the Blue Woods. They knew magic, people said; they could summon gods.
“Lord,” he said, uncertainly. “Mother… I… Before, when I asked, you told me it was foolish to seek after the crows. You said Yozora was tutor enough.”
“I did,” she said. “But things have changed.”
The monks, Sen thought.
“What was I supposed to do,” he asked, as the old anger rose in him again. “They disrespected our lands. Our laws… they wereattackingher, they would have killed her…”
“And you think it was up to you to save her?”
Sen turned about, fighting a familiar sense of suffocation. “They insulted you. Theylaughed, they laughed at us. At all of us. Like imperials always do… They act like they can do whatever they want.”
His stewardmother’s gaze softened then, and she nodded him close. Together, they looked out. Strange weather had continued through midsummer, and the night had turned, and soon he knew there would be storms full of lightning and deep wind, a lashing rain.
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” she told him. “But you must promise me that you will do this. It’s not all bad. Jobo is the crow master who once taught me. The trick is getting him to accept you. He will challenge you, Sen. He’ll speak in riddles.”
She gave him one of her gray smiles.
“It will be up to you to find a way to pass his test.”
There were legends, of course, about old Jobo Daiten. It was said that he could summon spirits, that he was a master of the martial arts. A saint, a mountain hermit, a genius with the art of blades; Jobo and his monks, they knew the secrets of the mountains, communed with gods and could send raw boulders flying from the hillside; they could make thunder, cut a dozen trees in a stroke, stand weightless on the snow, leap mountain cliffs, and turn night into day.
It was said they brought tidings of change.
Sen had grown up on stories of Jobo the Shugenja and the crows, how they knew magic, how they were half-gods themselves. How they took a young woman named Iyo Ogami’in as a student, taught her mysteries and the secret-sword. Jobo Kensei, people called him; Jobo, the sword-saint. Jobo, the great master of the woods.
By nightfall they’d arrived at the fortress, and Sen watched them, from the windows of his stewardmother’s house. He watched, and remembered what his tutor Yozora once told him: “Evil crow-dogs live in those woods. Ruled by ogres who will eat your head. Take no notice.”
The next morning, he slipped a few of Yozora’s books from the library under his robe and headed to his favorite spot on Kitaiji hill. The rain had stopped. The Taga boys were on the fields, riding in the brightened day, and Jobo and his monks were taking laps around the grounds before they went in for their councils.
The top of the hill was ringed with a pillared wall, mud and clay packed at the bottom, as though the great hilltop were a shrouded porcupine. From there, Sen could see across the lower slopes of Mount Kanzan,which reached up to the heavens; the entire city of Kitano lay spread below the main gate, on the south side, protecting the fortifications and their sloped rooftops within.
He took a turn across the battlements, enjoying the fall’s fair wind. The flags were flying. The hill, the valley, the mountains were all lit by blinding sweeps of sunlight through blue-dotted clouds; birds sang, farmers traveled on the road. He rested against the balustrade, gazing out at the old city. The Taga clan once ruled this place, before it was a city – it was just a little river town back then, winding streets and the manor houses. A residential area, but its bones were made by old Iteki families that were the first estate-owners here. As he crossed back, Sen was surprised to find the sickly smell of flowers permeating the top of a slow, twisting hill. The day had settled into a beautiful sunset, and the air had the bright, crisp quality that followed a rain. Evening fell; soon Yozora discovered the absence of his books. His cracked-whip voice rang across the battlements, crying out for the rat-rogue, Sen Hoshiakari.
“Akuma Dai-oh will have you for this!” he shouted, creaking about on his bad leg as Sen darted from the hill where he’d been reading.
“Hoshiakari!” Yozora hollered, huffed, and coughed with every step. “Those are not – your – books!”
Sen grinned, stuffing the books into his bag. Spinning around the turn of Kitaiji hill, the path split and he left the temple behind, going down a steep incline toward the fortress. It curved the side of the slope, stone and earth and gnarled tree-roots on his left, open hillside on his right. He allowed a little laugh to escape his lips, and was turning a corner when something came out of nowhere, flew from the side of the path, and tripped him between one step and the next. Sen went sprawling, books spilling from his bag.
When he looked up, Jobo the crow monk was standing over him, long oak staff in hand. There were two metal feathers at the top, among the prayer rings. He looked at Sen, ponderous and silent as an owl.
“Hoshiakari,” he said. “You are stealing again.”
The crow monk was an imposing figure, with graying bird’s-nest hair over a long nose and squinting eyes. He must be eighty years old, people said, but now Sen was struck by howsolidhe was, immovable in his stride.
“I…” Sen stood, trying to be more presentable before Jobo’s calm, half-lidded eyes. “I’m just… I’m trying to learn.”
