But she couldn’t. They hated her. They would always hate her. She felt the energy drain from her. She wanted to lie down, to sleep and never wake again. This was her life. It would never go away.
Yet as they walked, she found that somehow, the sun had come, casting everything around her in the pale white light of a morning. The air still held a chill. Fields and rice paddies stretched to one side, steep mountains to the other, and the path to Kannagara. Soon they passed an old house near the outer gate, with an oak sign of a brewer hanging over the door.
Rui stopped, frozen in shock and fear. The family of the young guard, Idachi Honnen, had come to see her go.
“Oh gods.”
She threw herself to the dirt before them, crying freely, trying to think of what to say. That she owed them for ever, that she would always be in their service, would do anything to make up for what she’d done.Let me, let me in. Let this be made good. Will you ever forgive me?
The woman’s scream was like the sound of hell.
No, she shouted.No, no, no.
It seemed that they might kill her on the spot, and Rui resolved to let them. “If you wish to punish me, I will accept the cost of what I’ve done…”
The wife, lean and wiry, came at her with a rake, and stood above her, gasping, weapon raised. But in the end, she stopped. She couldn’t do it, fell back with a sob. The husband, a short, square man with graying hair, stood motionless in a fit of rage. “Death for death will not bring our son back,” he uttered. “If I see you again, I’m afraid of what I’ll do. Get out of here.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Get out of here!”
He tore the rake from his wife’s hands and threw it at Rui, clipping her on the heels as she fled, sobbing, the rest of the way back to the street.
She found Jobo sitting on a low stone wall, watching the sky over the edges of the western gate. Sen lingered, eyes low, hands clasped.
“They told me to leave,” she gasped.
“Did you think they would forgive you?” Jobo hopped off the stone and gave a small last look toward the hill.
“Some things last for ever,” he said. “Come.”
Rui stumbled, suddenly exhausted. It would never go away.
“How do I make this better?” she asked.
“You can’t.”
“What?” She was on the verge of tears again.
“You can’t change what you’ve done,” he said. “But it should be obvious. You can only change what happens now.”
Rui sniffed, trying to calm her breath, but it was no use. She hated herself for this, for what had happened.
“Maybe one day,” he continued, “probably not tomorrow, but perhaps one day, you will be able to face that couple again. And maybe they will have learned something about you, too, about why it happened. Maybe they will have learned something about themselves. Maybe you’ll be able to make your amends to them then. But only maybe. They may choose never to forgive you, and you must live with that fact.”
“… What if I can’t?”
“Then it will curse you for ever. Whattheydo is not something you get to decide. It is in their hands. Now, come. We go to the Godspath. You have no choice.”
“It’ll be all right,” Sen said, quietly.
“How can the gods accept a… murderer into their shrine?” Rui asked. “How can they accept that you would teach me… how could you teach me, if… if…”
Jobo stopped. “What the gods accept is life. And you, Rui, you are still alive. That means: don’t squander it. If you do, you will be lost, and that man will still be dead. Then you will have wasted both your lives. Keep walking.”
He didn’t wait. Just went back along the mountain road as it began to narrow and carve its way along the slope. Above them, great pines swayed.
Sen lingered. “Come,” he said.
