“I… Chiten,” Yora began. “You cannot ask me to take part in a conspiracy against our government…”
“What if it’s an illegitimate government? Which is what it will be, when the Keishi boy is put on the steps…”
“He is the emperor’sson.”
“Who was conveniently conceived when Seikiyo wedded his daughter to the throne. She’s a kind girl, but you know how she’s been used. Bothof them, her and my son. They’re not fools, they know it to be true. They are also aware of the realities of what it means to be a child-emperor in the court these days. They aresymbols. The chancellor has all the military power – you, yourself, helped him get it. The warrior class. You have benefited too.”
“I would look at it differently,” Yora began. His hands were shaking.
Goshira laughed: “And they sayIwant power… but compared to you, I’m just an old man. We defeated the gods a thousand years ago, but we could never have realized we would be… castrated by our own bodyguards.” He spat the words. “You disagree? Just look what happened to your family when your brother stood against the Keishi. Look at Seikiyo. Look at what that man has done.”
“I will need to think on it,” Yora said.
Kaji Getoh handed him his sword when they left. “Any orders?”
“I need to send a message to my cousin Kiie,” Yora said. “I want you to go tell him to find my nephew Tokuon, in the north. Tell him what has happened. Tell him of this rebellion in the home-provinces. We need to see which way the north wind blows.”
“Tokuon will want a fight,” Getoh said, carefully.
“Just find Kiie, tell him to go, and be ready. I’ll meet him at the family shrine, outside Kiseda. After the New Year. Tell him. And hurry.”
Getoh sped off into the night.
For some time Yora walked along the path outside his residence, to the small bridge where the Onji River split away from the capital, south, then east and north toward the bay. There he watched the stars shimmer on the slowly moving water. A day’s ride would bring him to the great bridges, the estuary where the river opened up into grassy marshland, and eventually, to the great Awa Sea.
He stood on a little bridge above the stream, peering over the cold moonlight on the water, facing his dilemma. He had to make a choice. Tell his lord Seikiyo what he had heard, or keep it secret, try to find the truth before he brought news that would cause chaos. He was damp and his nose was running by the time Kai found him there.
“Uncle. Getoh told me you were here.”
“Of course he did.” He nodded to a bench. “You better sit.”
The worry that consumed his every waking thought was that Kai would be forced to take over their clan before she was ready. She had a keen mind, he knew, and was wise to the ways of strategy and politics. He had been partially responsible for that. But she was also young, tooyoung. She would be in over her head, forced to take actions in a world that couldn’t wait for her to make mistakes. And Kai was afraid – paralyzingly afraid – of making mistakes. It was her greatest weakness at the game-of-kings, and other tests of strategy; at the moment of choice, she would hesitate, unable to take the decisive move. That was how he still beat her at the games.
“How do I know I won’t do something wrong?” she’d asked.
He had no easy answer. “You’ll never know. Sometimes, not even after. The hardest part is to make the choice, and accept the consequence – good or bad. To become paralyzed is the result of overthinking. It leads to too much thought. It leads to inaction. Which is worse than the wrong action, is it not? That’s why the monks say to have no-thought. That’s why the warriors say, ‘Charge up any hill, and it will be the right one.’ Because if you’re wrong, you can make the change and go to the next. But if you spend your time deliberating, trying to choose between the two hills on either side, the enemy will outflank you. The answer is to charge the hill. And keep moving.”
“I feel like everything rests on me,” she’d said. “It’s not so easy.”
“No,” he’d said. “It’s not. That’s why we just keep moving.”
Yet now, on this bridge, in a city going bankrupt all around him, Yora cursed himself. What was he doing now, but deliberating? What was he doing in the face of this dilemma but failing to act?
“If I was a student, they’d tell it to my face,” he muttered. And yet, the choices lay before him, like the two sides of a bridge. On the one side, inaction, loyalty, and peace. Keishi control. This was what he chose when Kai’s father rebelled. This was the only reason she was still alive.
And yet. And yet.
On the other side was anger. Righteousness.Action.
It would lead to war.
“The Keishi have to pay for what they’ve done to us,” Kai said slowly. “You know this.”
Yora was taken aback. “There are still ways that we can work together.”
“No,” Kai said, scowling. “There aren’t.”
Something cracked in him then. “I’ve seen my brothersdie. You have to understand what you’d be getting into – if we start a war, how many will be killed? Thousands. And for what?”
