Jobo’s smile fell. “Well,” he said. “It’s better than the opposite.”
He sat quietly, unwrapping a bundle he’d carried up the mountain. “They said you trained with Iyo’s warriors at the castle.”
“I did.”
“And you still want to be like them?”
In his hands was a short training sword made of oak. Sen reached for it, but Jobo pulled away. “Are you afraid of suffering, Hoshiakari?”
“No,” said Sen again. As he had so often.
Jobo sighed. “The truth is, the Ogami’in always wanted me to train you.” He handed Sen the sword. “She’s worried. There’s danger in the air. Western monks are snooping in her lands. Gods are walking through the borders of the earth again. Peace is soon to crumble… And now, Sen Hoshiakari wants to fight…”
Sen opened his hands. “Then what do you want of me?”
“If you go in this direction, I will not be able to protect you. You can choose a different path. Our lives are not fixed. The gods don’t carve us out of stone. Every choice we make changes our fate. The question is not how to choose, Hoshiakari. The question is, will you be ready? The question is,whatwill you choose?”
“I’ll choose what must be done,” Sen said. “That’s the only way to help.”
“Just remember, for people who want to eat their meat, the slaughtering of pigs, that, too, must be done.”
Kitano city lay below them, huge and marvelous at the base of itshill; the river wound behind it, and on the peak, the golden temple being built.
“Kitaiji,” Jobo said. “Temple of hope. The Ogami’in cares for you, Sen. But if you continue on your path, if you want to be a warrior, it means you will beGenseiagain. It will beyouthey call upon when the killing must be done; the knife will be in your hand. And there will be innocents.”
He moved toward the trail, leaving Sen to take in the view, alone.
“That’s what your family is,” he said. “That’s what you must see.”
CHAPTERTEN
Rui
Shoho Year 3
Winter
By early winter, Rui had presented herself at the castle gates and begun her new work as assistant stablehand to the lady’s horses in Kitano. It was grueling work, and she could never get the smell of dry dirt and hay and horseshit out of her clothes, but she found she liked it.
The first day, the Betto, the head groom and horsemaster, had thrown a ragged broom into her arms and told her to sweep the stables.
“Y’know, my granfer was a no’in,” he said, strolling under the shadow of the eaves. A short, round man, he had a kindly face encircled by a balding head and a beard at his chin. He seemed reluctant to train Rui at first, but after she’d showed what she knew of horses, he softened, and soon took a liking to her. “No disrespect. Just usually they send me some kinda snot-nosed kid, don’t know the heck they’re talking about. So. Work, it won’t be different t’what you’re used to, only these’re war-breeds, got a little personality. Meaning like, they’re mad as piss’n won’t take shit from anybody ain’t deserve to touch ’em. Anyways. Tole me you’re a bit of a fighter, bet you’ll get along.”
The work proved to be quite satisfying, even a little comforting. These were fine stables, well provisioned, with a courtyard and some plum trees by the fence. Her job was to look after the horses, check for colic, whisperin soft tones when something happened and the Betto had to give them passing to the other world. She talked to the horses, trading secret words: they listened better. Give them a gaze, a feather’s touch upon the ear; tell them how the world waited, vast, and beautiful. “We’ll ride together, you and me,” she said. “We’ll run the hills, into the sun. We’ll be free.”
The Betto watched her with a smile. Squint-marked and ruddy, he too knew the simplicity of caring for another living thing, the feeling of using your toil for the health of another;this is how you do good in the world, she thought, this was what she liked. And the horses were astounding. The Kitanohara had larger, more aggressive horses than Rui had ever seen. She looked forward to getting to know them.
That afternoon, the Betto pointed to the last stable, where a beautiful gray-and-black stallion watched them. “That’s Kaminari, mountain thunder. The Hoshiakari’s horse. Fierce. Bit of temper in that one. So, we try’n take care of him.”
Rui went up to the stallion carefully, and gently reached out, once he let her. “He’s wonderful,” she said. “Hey there, look at you. Aren’t you a beautiful thing.” He came to meet her, ears relaxed. “I can tell they love you very much,” she whispered. The horse, Kaminari, sighed happily and let her trace her finger along his side. “Feels good, huh? Good boy.” Kaminari nickered.
“Give him a treat,” the Betto said. “Then I’ll take you back’n see the grounds.”
When she fell onto her pallet that night, sore and sweaty and feeling fully alive, she thought it might not be so bad here after all. The sun changed its color, the long day waned. Sky bloomed deep blue and black, an after-image of the sun came through the clouds, and the air felt fresh and clean. Night descended on the valley. A hush fell. Rui lay back with her medicine box on her lap, and inside it, the jade she’d brought with her few belongings. She slipped it around her neck, feeling its comforting curve. She lay in the quietness of it all, breathing in the crisp evening air, and for once, the world didn’t seem so bad anymore. For once, it felt like peace.
So the days turned into weeks. Rui continued waking up at dawn, and in the glimmering hours before the household stirred and the servants started on their tasks, she walked the misted courtyard, the ring-like wall around their vast estate, a fortress on the edges of the mountain; she watched the guards, patrolling in their damp armored suits, shivering, and huffing in the cold; she watched the house-people lighting fires, steamingrice before the sun was up. There were other no’in in the compound, though all of them were older, and from the other village by the rivers, not the wide flatness where hers had fields below the ridges and the tors. There were ge’in too, craftsmen, weavers, and the ones who made the bowls, cut timber; trappers who came and went, traders whose job it was to travel up and down the river, selling gold, and furs, down south. They didn’t talk to her. The no’in lit the fires, collected the morning’s eggs; the guards watched from their high places, warily, and perhaps with envy, perhaps wishing for their turn to end, to come and find a warm pot by the cookhouse. The days grew colder, dawn-time shimmering with frost, and soon the sight of Rui with her woven robe and hand-made sandals ceased to bother them. She was just another person of the house, a servant, like the others, not abused but never given any thought.
As the weeks turned to months, the Betto trained her, showed her how to deal with the Lady Iyo’s horses, wild, ungelded and intended to be used for war. One afternoon a mare gave birth, and Rui helped with the delivery, coming out an hour later dazed and sticky with the shroud of life, feeling slightly drunk with wonder. She grew more confident; she took the great-horse, Kaminari, on his runs, led him on the fields, even brought him to the meadow to the north. Soon she was the only person he let near, while his master, Sen, was gone away in training with the Shugenja and his crows.
