Chapter Two Sen #3
Hakaru looked set to charge them, but the other monks stood firm. Soon they would come to blows. Behind them, on his horse, Nihira called their names again. “Sen. Hakaru. Now!”
“You don’t know what you’ve just done, boy,” the monk hissed at last, straightening his robes. “Though I care not. You are but crude, unlearned people, in these lands beyond the barrier.” He took a threatening step forward. “But if you’re not careful, you will pay.” Then, to his monks: “Come!”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Hakaru shoved in. “Hey! Hey!”
Nihira again cried, “Stop!”
The red monk turned. “I mean they’ll come for you, prince,” he said, waving a thick finger in Sen’s face: “Remember this. I know who you are.”
With a glare, he shoved Sen off. “Away with us!” His eyes left Sen’s own only to dart back to the jade-bead necklace once again. “I can tell when we’re not wanted.”
Then he strode past, waving as if dispelling some foul air.
“We will find that no’in, princes of the east. She has struck the followers of the Middle Path. She will be punished!”
“Off with you,” Hakaru called.
“We will see you, warrior sons,” the monk said in parting. “We’ll see soon enough.”
And they were gone. Riding back up the highland trail, back up into the blaze of sun’s light that was turning deeper red. Back through the no’in village and the larger township, toward Kitano on its hill.
“Those mongrels,” Hakaru began. “Damn them. Where’d that girl go?”
“Enough,” Nihira said. He turned to Hakaru and Sen. “Come. We should get home. It’s not for us to disturb a no’in’s life any further.”
It was only when they’d climbed the hill again that Sen saw how tightly Nihira gripped his reins. Only then did he see how angry his stewardmother’s heir truly was.
“Get what you deserve, you mud-snails,” Sen muttered.
But the air was changing. He didn’t know how to hold his feelings, and as his stewardbrothers waited on the trail, he wheeled about, watching the dust clouds drifting into summer sky. They were rising, choking him.
“I’ll – catch up with you,” he called, feeling something he couldn’t explain. “I want to ride a little first.”
“Sen, do nothing rash,” Nihira warned.
“They’ve already done something rash,” Sen said, and turned his horse into the woods.
In truth, Sen wanted to be alone. Wanted to pass the hills, the rivers and the paddy-fields. Wanted to kiss up against the edges of the woods and go in, and lose himself in the forest near the Godspath. What will they do, he’d asked his stewardmother once, the imperials, if they find out I’m alive?
I don’t know, Lady Iyo had said, and I have no wish to find out.
Be careful near them.
Sen thought of his father as he rode, of the night he died, the night he paid the price for his rebellion.
Imagined his wounded heart, blood flowing when the arrows came.
Imagined the retainer, whose name Sen didn’t know, who betrayed him.
Who caught him alone with his daughter Kai and led the enemy Keishi clan to him, as wolves on a scent.
The sun went down in a blaze of honeyed air and shards of light lanced through the trees. He found himself in a thicket by the river, passing a turn in the mountain road where someone had made a little shrine to the spirit-god O-ine.
He thought of blood in the soil, frozen in winter and unfrozen, then frozen again, seventeen years of his family’s death seeped into earth that grew rice for imperial hands.
He thought of the sky from their ancient homeland in the hills of Amayari-by-the-sea, which he’d never seen, and only knew from stories.
He thought of the moon, the stars that gave his name.
He thought of the smell of a bamboo cask; the smell he would never forget.
He thought of a small hand holding his own, and didn’t know why.
The past lives within us, his tutor, Old Yozora, always said, burning away, merrily, and as hot as it ever had in life. The dead are gone, but never leave.
So that is my inheritance, Sen thought. An empty room. The smell of bamboo, a child’s hand, one jade bead on a string, and a paper that tells the past.
Somewhere out there, I have family, he told himself. Somewhere, I have a sister. I have an uncle living still.
I will find a way to meet them.
Soon he emerged into a space in the middle of the woods, a rare flat hollow ringed with trees.
There, a pond lay glinting as if in magic light.
The sun was going down; already it had faded past the edges of the wood, casting everything in shades of gold.
A soft glow filled the air. Time seemed to vanish.
At the water’s edge there was a wooden dock, built large enough for a rowboat and nothing more. He tied Kaminari to a tree and turned toward the water, still as a mirror, silent, and serene.
There, as he had hoped, he found them – the two of them, the no’in woman and the first, dying serow that had fled, the size of a deer. Even now it was panting its final breaths. It had made it to the water’s edge, as if to leap in and swim wildly to the other shore, before it fell.
The no’in was shorter than him. She wore peasant clothes, rough hemp robe and pants, and Sen saw now that she had a string of prayer beads around her wrist. For a time, he didn’t want to move, didn’t want to breathe, for fear of breaking the reverie.
She was crying softly, on her knees in the fine sand, and her hands were gently stroking the animal and its fur.
“You’re all right,” she said, gently, with such sadness in her voice. “You didn’t do anything wrong… you’ll be all right…”
He waited until the animal gave its final breath. Then, as if making a signal, his horse snorted, took a step.
She looked up. “What are you doing here?” Suddenly she rose, and for a moment Sen thought she would attack him too, but then she stopped, and stammered, “Beg pardon, ame’in.
I-I didn’t realize…” The red of her hair seemed to change in the fading light, falling in waves from the clasp that held it back.
Her eyes met his – a flash of brown, nearly hazel – then she looked away. She bowed again.
“It’s okay,” Sen said. “Come, get up. It’s fine.”
She rose as she’d been ordered, but stood there staring at the ground. And as so often in his life, Sen found himself floating, with a million things to think, and nothing at all to say.
At last he took a cautious step forward.
“Don’t come here,” she said, suddenly harsh.
He slowed. “You know this place?”
“Kijin don’t come here.” Her voice was barely loud enough for him to hear. Kijin, he thought. Warriors.
“I’m – sorry,” he said. It felt so foolish; it felt as though he had no other words. “I meant, just that it… it didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, it didn’t.” He felt she was watching him coldly, judging him for the behavior of the monks.
“I can send someone,” he offered. “For the serow. Our monks will come… our monks. We’ll give it a burial…”
She nodded, but it was as if agreement meant something different for her, as if it was another kind of pain.
He wanted to know why. But when she drew herself up, he saw she had blood on her, from where she’d sat with the serow, in the sand; it stained her fingers.
She held her hands out, seeing the blood as he did, then brought them together behind her.
“I’m sorry to have interrupted you, lord ame’in,” she murmured, as if remembering her place.
Sen said uncertainly, “It’s all right.”
Her eyes flicked to the dead serow once again. She bowed quickly, begrudgingly. She’s not supposed to be talking to someone of my status, he realized.
“Lord Hoshiakari, I apologize for causing such a scene,” she said.
He blinked. “You know my name?”
She merely bowed again, and when she did, he caught a glimpse of the stone she had on a string about her neck, a small, curved bead of jade.
It was exactly like his own.
Instantly her deep-chestnut hair reminded him of something. What was it? A flash of red, a small hand on his, a bamboo rice-cask and a farmer’s hut at night, so long ago. When his family had died, the no’in town…
“Wait,” he called. “What’s your name?”
“Rui,” she said. “Misosazai Rui.” And hurried off.
“Wait,” Sen called again, but by the time he reached the treeline, she was already gone, and he was alone with the dead animal, the silent echo pond, and the whisper of the leaves.
The jade was a Gensei clan jewel, he knew. His family’s jewel. How does she have one?
When he got back to his horse, he found that somehow he had the creature’s blood on him as well.
His arm still ached where the red-robed monk had grabbed it, and now, looking at the serow’s blood, frustration rose in him again.
He could still smell the sour stink of the monk’s breath, still hear the danger and the threat in his voice.
Sen felt a spike of unease. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew that something important had changed that afternoon.
He’d seen how the expression on the strange monk’s face had hardened; he hadn’t appeared a haughty old man anymore, but something sharper, something far more dangerous.
He’d looked up at them with suspicion, turned, and lowered his head, shuffling down the path toward the trail and the old road that would lead him to Kitano.
They’ll come for you, prince, he’d said, strange light gleaming in his eyes.
I know who you are.