Chapter Twenty-Four Sen #2
The Gensei army would gather in the farmlands below Mount Sengen, Tokuon said, north of the road to Kiseda and Tose: an anti-Keishi land at the heart of the fertile, grassy plains.
“I understand you wanted to remain with your friend,” he said as they headed back into the keep, on the faint pathway between Kitaiji and the road.
Sen didn’t know what to say. “We all have our different kinds of family, in this world,” he managed, at last.
Tokuon gave him a small smile.
“Yes. And care, and loyalty, is admirable. But your sister needs your help.”
“I’ve never met Kai Gekko’in,” Sen said. “Not that I can remember.”
“You were together when you were young. You and Lady Kai. I met you there, at your mother’s estate in Amayari, when you were born.
I was a child then, but I remember. She used to hold you in her lap; you were just a babe, screaming and screaming, but when she held you, your sister was the only one who could get you to calm. ”
“Lord Zusho holds them now,” Sen said. “Those lands.”
“Yes.” Tokuon slowed. Memories had come and fallen with the changing moonlight.
Clouds drifted like tattered lotus in the night, the world grew brighter, awash in its silver glow; even time now seemed to be halted.
The autumn mountains gleamed. But rain threatened them from the west, a flat backdrop to the migrating birds in their lines. Tokuon dropped his facade.
“I cannot force Nihira to wage our war,” he said. “But the Gensei must be called to arms. We can raise this army. Seikiyo” – he spat the name, an insult – “will denounce us as rebels and raise his own army in the sovereign’s name.”
“You would go against the Ten’in?”
“Emperor Ashihara is under the Keishi thumb. Goshira still has true influence, and Prince Nioh has a claim. They’re planning their first moves in the capital now, but they must keep it secret, for Seikiyo has eyes and ears in all places there. I hope to bring our armies to join them.”
“So it will be another war for succession,” Sen said.
“I told you, Hoshiakari, I am here to bring you home. But it will not be easy.”
“Kai is the heir, not me.”
“Everything our family once had is gone. This is our chance to take it back.” Tokuon paused in the orange lanternlight. “We leave in the morning.”
Sen found his stewardbrother staring into a fire at the hearth. “Seikiyo Jokai,” Hakaru said, watching the flames. Sen realized he was drunk. “The Keishi. He’s chancellor now. If you saw him…”
“Chancellor,” Sen echoed, scowling.
“Running the whole capital. Man who did this to you. Your folks. Killed your parents. And now… with mother… If you saw him…”
“They’d kill me before I ever saw him,” Sen said.
“If ever you came face-to-face with him.” Hakaru looked at Sen. “What d’you think you’d do?”
“Everywhere I might go, there will be a mark against me,” Sen said. “Because of what my father did. Everywhere but with Gensei. I don’t know the Keishi… How can I hate them? But they did this to us. They’re the reason I’m here.”
“My mother is the reason you’re here.”
“… And I have to repay that debt. I have to undo the damage they’ve done… if this was them, if they hurt her… That’s the only way I’ll be able to…” He dried up.
“What?”
Sen opened, and closed, his hands. “Go back,” he said.
“So, then do this for us,” Hakaru said. “For Iyo. You make your name. You clean it. Get rid of the shame. Get vengeance. Then you come home.”
Finally the door opened, and the healers let them in.
But Lady Iyo of the Kitanohara was asleep.
Her wounds had bled again. Her binds had been replaced.
Her face had better color now, and Sen thought – hoped – she looked stronger than before.
There was a chance she would survive, a chance she would recover.
He fought tears again, gazing at her, the woman who had been the only mother in his life; her fine features, the gentle lines near her eyes, the gray braided hair and the soft scent of the oils she used, which even now still smelled like wildflowers.
He placed a hand on hers, and felt the warmth. He thought she stirred.
But her eyes, her kind, wise eyes, didn’t open.
He was silent as he said his goodbye.
Nihira followed him into the cloakroom, shoulder balanced against the door. Sen was gathering his things. “Is this really what you want?”
“Not about what I want,” Sen said.
They hadn’t had a chance to speak alone since Nihira became the lord of Kitano.
Azamaro, his stepfather, had been in council all day.
Hakaru would speak to no one, and lost himself in long rides into the woods, loosing arrows at wild geese.
Nihira had always been even-tempered, yet when Sen looked into his older stewardbrother’s eyes now, he saw again how furious Nihira really was.
“You could just say, fuck them,” Nihira muttered, a rare break of anger coming through. “And their wars.” He fell quiet for a time. “I’m not ready for this, brother. But then, no one is.”
“I will fix this,” Sen said.
“Some things can’t be fixed.”
“I have to try, Nihira.”
Nihira paused. There were years in his glance, years of all their life together.
There was pain. “I want to give you something.” He brought Sen to the private armory where he kept his weapons.
In the center of the room, a suit of armor rested on a stand.
“Mother had this made,” Nihira said, “last year. She intended to give it to you… and you’ll need it. ”
Purple and deep blue, in the traditional colors of the northern clan. Iyo had fixed a small shooting star on the helmet as a crest: “To mark your sobriquet,” Nihira said. “They call it the Lightning… You will stand out from the red and gold of Gisan. They may ask you to change it.”
“I won’t,” Sen said. “This is…” What could he say? Tears, already, had formed around his eyes, threatening to spill and make an embarrassment of him. “It’s beautiful.”
How proud. How welcomed. How uncertain this made him feel. Iyo called him son. Nihira, now, was saying, You are my family too.
“I should have been more thankful,” he said. To Iyo, to his brothers, the leaders of the east, who took him in when no one else would, who raised him, protected him as one of their own.
“She wanted you to be safe,” Nihira said. “It was always a possibility you’d go back.”
He didn’t need to say the rest: To them.
Sen looked at the new lord of Kitano. He knew his stewardbrother’s looks. His silences. Knew he was trying to let Sen go.
Nihira brought him to a stand. “My bow,” he said, offering it to Sen. Taller than he was, with a long, graceful arc, shining crimson with lacquer. “You will need this, too.”
Sen couldn’t meet his eyes. Why did he feel like he was abandoning Nihira now? Abandoning his life in the eastern lands? Why did it feel as though something irrevocable had been torn in two?
“Will you look after her?” he asked at length. “Rui.”
“I’ll do my best,” Nihira said. “As will the crow monk.”
Sen nodded, pulling his cloak over his shoulders.
“I’ve heard from my relatives in the south,” Nihira said. “Conspiracies in the capital. They’re up to something, and I don’t know what. I warned them, Sen, just as I’ve warned you.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“No one knows what will happen, but everyone makes their plans. Trying to get to the top.”
“Not me,” Sen said. “I don’t want to rule anybody. I just want to make peace.”
“Then you are better than most of them,” Nihira said.
“I wish you could come.”
“In some ways,” Nihira said, “so do I. But I have responsibilities here. Our domain has always worked for independence from the intrigues of the capital. I cannot get involved.”
He sighed. “Mother told me something once. I didn’t really understand, until now.
She said: one day, they will call on us to march for them again.
And when they do… We are going to betray each other.
Us, and those other clans. We’ve probably already betrayed each other, in some way.
Because when you’re in that situation, you have two choices: assimilate – or the other thing. So. What do you choose?”
“Option number three,” Sen said.
“That’s what I used to say, too.” Nihira smiled. “I hope you’ll be better than me.” He looked out across the hillside, the grove of whistling pines, and the half-constructed temple on the mountain.
“Whatever happens,” Sen said, “I will come back.”
“Oh,” Nihira said, “I know.”
“I’ll see you soon, Ogami’in.”
“That is my greatest hope,” Nihira said. As Sen turned to go, he called, “Be careful.”
Sen stopped in the open doorway. He’d finished tying his straw coat now, and was about to turn into the rain, where Lord Tokuon and the retainers were waiting. He heard them gathering the horses and baggage in the downpour.
“Always am,” he said, and left his brother to his grief.