The horses whinnied. On the shooting fields, his lord’s cousins were trying their hand at targets made of straw. They wore hunting clothes with round collars, angled caps, flowing sleeves that could be gathered at the ends. A party had gone off into the woods, and even now the men below him were lowering their bows. Seichi, Seikiyo’s youngest son, had scored some point. He saw his former student, Yaeko of House Eiga, there among them. At last he felt a breeze, the ending of the summer storms. Clouds had gathered on the mountain.
“You won’t try your hand?”
The mirror prince, Nioh Shinno, half-brother to Emperor Ashihara, came behind him wearing jeweled clothes. He inclined his head: arrows were being removed from the straw-and-paper targets. “My lord Shijin,”he said, voice soft in the vastness of the field, “if the stories are true, you’d best the lot of them.”
The mirror prince was a slim man, not yet thirty. Dressed in robes with waterlilies over green and red brocade, circles under his eyes and a constant smile he wore like a mask. He held a long, thin box in his hands.
“Lord Prince,” Yora said. “How’s your brother?”
The prince turned back, annoyed. “Half-brother. He’s too busy being half a god. No one sees him.”
“His people see him.”
A smile. “And thus:Iam no one.”
“What are you doing here, lord?”
Nioh shrugged. “Yora the Poet. Named for some lines you wrote, what, thirty years ago? Ever the ear of our lord chancellor and the darling of the court. ‘Listen to him,’ they tell me… But am I meant to report my whereabouts to you, now?”
“I meant, not many nobles come to see a hunt.”
“No,” Nioh said. “They wouldn’t. Too… uncivilized. Although one wonders at the evils that they do, with their money and their words.”
Another arrow whistled. Far-off hunters gave a shout. Yora gazed to the group of workmen who’d come to watch, from the edges of the wood, though in truth you couldn’t see anything from here, unless the hunters decided to swing back and make target practice of the trees.
“Deer are sacred with some temples,” Nioh continued, with a noble’s didactic air. “Some would say this is close to blasphemy.” He indicated vaguely. “A common saying in the capital: ‘The farther from Saikyo you get, the worse you will become.’ Distance brings out that which is primitive, in all of us. So terrible, inhuman. Only now, kijin hold the chancellor’s seat. Our halls are swarmed with fighting men. Not the learned ones.”
“The learned ones have better things to do,” Yora suggested, “than wander aimlessly through halls.”
“Yes, they study. And you warriors. You hunt. Though I would prefer to have you here… Seems much wiser than to have our loyal men scattered in the wild. Or who would protect us?”
Even the Ten’in are human, Yora thought.And humans desire power.“They fear us.”
“Perhaps. But what a contradiction you are, Yora. The Poet. A fighting man, and a learned one.” Nioh shrugged, nonchalant. “You do know that we – we of certain nobility – we speak for you. Things are not as worried as you might expect. My respect for your line goes deep. After all, you are the descendants of great heroes. Who was it, Raiko, in the oldmirror-books, who slew the demon Hiradoji? Monster-in-human-skin. Rampaging around the capital, killing, drinking blood. Then, a band of heroes, led by your ancestor, assaulted Hiradoji’s palace, used some trick to sneak him into getting drunk, chopped off his head. Yet, even after it was removed from his body, Hiradoji shouted curses and bit them if they came close.”
He gave a halting smile. “Now it seems the myth is true. Yes? No matter how you cut the head, the monster will remain to bite you. Or don’t you agree?”
“I’m a man of neither world,” Yora said. “‘Walking the bridge’, my father used to say. You remarked about the hunt. Well. Seikiyo and his sons are out here, now, with their bows and arrows, seeking deer to offer to the god of war.”
“Yes.”
“I must tell you, lord, I am hunting, too.”
Nioh nodded slightly, as though in confirmation. “For my brother, yes. So, here we come to the bridge. Tell me, do we cross, or are you standing in my way?”
A shout went up; someone else had scored. Ge’in pageboys dashed onto the grass, plucking arrows. “I suppose that would depend,” Yora said, “on the direction you wish to travel.”
The prince considered him. “Indeed. They say you’re looking for something in the east. They say you’re interfering with my father the retired-emperor’s affairs.”
“I’m here on Seikiyo’s orders, lord. I will not lie.”
“Seikiyo Jokai,” Nioh muttered. “The monk-warrior. Why, I wonder, did he take the tonsure, only to insult the temples of Mount Eizan? He has rejected the Boar’s petition again.”
“The Boar?”
“Ryaku’in. He’s fighting to come back.”
“The monks are always fighting,” Yora said. “I cannot speak to their motives.”
