Without thinking, Rui pulled herself to him, wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Her face pressed against his shoulder.
“You can do this,” he whispered.
So she did. It took a while at first, but Sen offered his hand, and after a time, the tears didn’t fall so heavily anymore. The hills surrounded them, the sky shone sharp and bright, and the birds still sang in the trees.
“Keep walking,” Jobo said again.
Rui took Sen’s hand and followed the crow monk down the trail.
PARTTWO
The Clouds Gather
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Kai
Shoho Year 4
Lunar New Year
“Come in,” said the Minister of the Left. The doors creaked open and the glare blinded Kai with light. The great council hall welcomed her within, long, tall-ceilinged and paneled with wood, oak and maple, adorned with hanging scrolls. Ministers faced each other in their sub-chamber, two of each: two Ministers of the Left and two of the Right sitting beside each other, the Ministers of the Center below them, and at the far end, the Grand Chancellor of State, Keishi-no-Seikiyo, at the dais.
Hara-no-Ichiei Hoin, First-of-the-Above and Minister of the Left, was a small man, round at his waist and wide in his smile, with oiled, thinning hair, expensive robes, and the lordship over history, record-keeping, the census, and cultural affairs. “He’s a bank more than anything,” her stewardfather Zusho Masashige had told her once, before she made the trip from Satsuki on the coast. “He hoards things. Histories, temple plans, architects’ levies, profit shares and land rights from estates all through the realm. He’s never set a foot in any of them.”
The Second Minister of the Left seemed a scholar. Though under fifty, he was rail-thin, with a beard and mustache, and looked a man who had to squint when he staggered from his books and went into the light ofday. His clothes were simple, unlike the colors of his partner, with a scant brocade of gold his only ornamentation.
Yora sat in his position at their feet, observant and respectful.
“Ministers,” he announced. “Lady Kai Gekko’in.”
“It’s been many years since a Gensei sat this council,” said the Minister of the Right, a plump, balding man in shimmering silks. “Excepting your uncle Yora of the guard. Thank you for traveling all this way, lady.”
“Things haven’t changed so much here, I think,” Minister Hoin said, casually. “How does it feel to be back?”
“It feels like an opportune time,” Kai said. “It feels like fate, if I can be so bold.”
The Minister of the Right laughed. “She’s honest, at the least. Refreshing.”
“And what can we do for you today?” Hoin’s scholarly partner asked. “Tell us, why have you come all this way? It is such a very long journey from the Kanden…”
“I must thank the lord chancellor first,” Kai said. “He is, after all, the man who spared my life.”
“My wife spared you as much as I did.” Seikiyo spoke quietly. He hadn’t moved much when she came in, only sat leaning on his elbow, watching her, as if considering a foreign object, and valuing its worth.
“And if she were here, I could kiss her hands.”
Kai paused.
“Ministers,” she said. “I don’t have to tell you of the insult my clanline has received these last years. We are scattered to the winds, those few of us who survived. Our lands, once great in the east, are no longer our own. I’ve come to change that. I request a grant of land from the sovereign, as befits my hereditary claim, and appeal to have the land rights of my clan restored.”
“The Gensei stood against the emperor,” said the Minister of the Right. “Your father rebelled.”
“And he was killed for it. I have no illusions, lord, about what my father did. But as the lord chancellor told me the day he allowed me to keep my life, we should not be judged for the actions of our fathers. My father’s sins werehis, his mistakes were his. Why should his children be made paupers and beggars on the streets?”
“You’re hardly beggars,” said Hoin. “You’ve a comfortable life in Zusho, I’m told.”
“I am a ward of House Zusho. It’s true, I have learned from them. They’ve become a kind of… family to me. And for that, I am grateful. ButI deserve lands of my own. The lands of Amayari in the Kanden have deep roots in my family; the people are friendly to us there. They wish only for their peace. It will be a blessing for the court if we were to be allowed to rule once again, as managers for the manors and estates, many of which I know are jointly owned by you, here, in the capital.
