Chapter Thirty Demons
CHAPTER THIRTY
Demons
The girl watched.
A dozen men came, stormed the former-emperor’s manor and began arresting household guards.
She wandered the streets outside, having walked from the great gate of the world to the doorstep of the palace.
Time didn’t matter to her; she grew neither tired nor hungry.
She never blinked. She lingered. She kept to the side, quiet as a ghost, remaining just within the shadow of a door, or wall, or gate.
The girl watched; from a distance, she seemed as any other child on the street: threadbare clothes devoid of color, straw sandals, one hand scratching at her head.
Commotion on the imperial avenue. The Ten’in, Ashihara, was moving to his wife’s estate.
Or, more accurately, his wife’s family’s estate.
Their mansion was now his, and as always, the child – in this case, the emperor-to-be – would be raised in his mother’s home.
The House of Six Waves. The House of Keishi.
She watched; the procession stretched the length of the street itself. Trailing from Ashihara’s ankles all the way back to the paired orange and cherry trees at the foot of his palace, half a city away.
She watched, just another set of eyes among the crowd. There were whispers. City-dwellers and the traders coming through. Everyone talked. Everyone jostled, said, Look. You see now what has come.
“A new prince,” people murmured. She wandered through the throng, as they waved and clapped and bowed around her.
They did not see her. They had eyes for no one but their Ten’in, the heavenly descendant.
They said he would step down, that Ashihara would retire as so many of his forebears had, and pass the throne to his infant son.
Why make a baby your sovereign? the girl wondered.
But then, she knew: standing at the gate to welcome them, a man in flowing, flowery robes.
Gray splinters on his cheeks, gray eyes, a bald head like a priest. Bright Seikiyo, people whispered.
The chancellor. An imperial person must live a life of ceremony; there were rules, there were traditions.
Prayers and audiences must be made. If, and when, Ashihara was to retire, he would be free of them at last, and thus able to lead his own house without restraint.
Except the elder retired-emperor still lived, and as Ashihara’s father, he, Goshira, was still the head of their line.
Two retired-emperors, living at the same time, people said.
No good will come of this. It will be a fight.
But it’s already a fight, the girl thought. It’s been a fight for years.
She watched; she wandered. She floated about, drifting from one street to the next, wallowed along the roads outside the capital until the sun began to set. It was time to go.
She’d been following the Keishi son, Shigeo, for some time.
He had not done well after his lover’s death.
People said, A man’s wife makes him what he is – only now, she was gone.
Killed. His beloved infant son was sent away.
He’d thrown off his courtly attire in fury.
He’d shaved his head. He turned his back on his own father, went on a pilgrimage for guidance.
He feared his father’s intentions, the girl saw.
He feared his father’s greed. But the glory of the Keishi lay in victory, not defeat; the conspiracy was crushed.
Their place secure. Only a few small people had to die.
And now he was caught in a vise, between his father, Seikiyo, and his mentor, Goshira, who had always been his friend.
It had been the Chiten who’d matched him with Nariko. Who’d blessed them with white salt.
I have tried, he said, to his friends, to cause my father to restrain the evil leanings of his heart. I have tried to bring the realm enduring peace. But we’ve seen what’s followed. I can do no more.
He went to Mount Takano, prayed for days on end. The girl watched from the shadows, from inside the walls. When he returned to the city, he found that Goshira had taken Nariko’s lands and increased pressure on the Keishi in retaliation for Deer Valley.
He fell ill a few days later. He was promised to attend the consecration of the new-emperor’s name, but could not. He stayed home. He sent the doctors away. He decided to become a monk, as his eldest brother had so many years before, after Asa’in’s rebellion.
The relationship between Seikiyo and the Chiten, such as it was, had fallen apart.
Soldiers with the Keishi butterfly flying high in the winter breeze surrounded the Chiten’s manse. They brought him a new decree: they confined him to his home.
The girl watched it all.
Now it was time.
“Who is this one?” she asked. In the new, blue light of dark, her sister answered.
“A son,” said the woman in white, “who has fallen very ill. With rage. With heartbreak. With sin. He wants to leave this place. He seeks to enter the priesthood, to find a better life. We must help him.”
So the girl wandered; she approached the old, grand house. She entered through the garden. Yes, she thought. So quiet here. So calm, so peaceful.
She heard shouts from within; big men, scary soldiers: household guards with knives.
When the doors opened and they came at her, they slowed in shock. For she was just a girl, and they were large, and not yet full of hate.
She said, “Hello.”
When she left the house, there weren’t any soldiers anymore.
She went back outside. The air was ice; her hands dripped. She sat, at the bottom of the lawn, by the grass and the stream and trees.
And she waited until the gold turned red in the sky, then darker, blue-violet, and burned like flame.
She waited until the hollow-eyed young man came home.
The garden gate: it was opening, glinting with its finely painted arch. The click of the latch, the creak of wood.
Shigeo came into his garden, pausing when he saw her. Was it surprise? Anger? Fear? She smiled.
Above her the plum tree stood defiant against the cold. It had waved at her, during the windy sundown, before the light had gone; it waved even now, when the shadows seemed to move behind him, and the sky fell bright with stars. The air grew colder still.
“Shigeo,” she said.
The man made half a step, in shock, in awe, in a different kind of fear. His hand went to his sword.
“Shigeo,” she said, again. “We came.”
Beside her, her sister in white looked down. The child moved back, quietly. And watched.
“Who are you?”
The girl made her little smile, hop-skipped to the pond, and sat, head between her knees, to see the fish. One, two, three. That one, specked with gold.
“Hello, lord,” her sister said.
“Who—”
He’d tensed; the girl turned up from the fish in time to see it. His eyes, flashing to the garden door, the deck, the veranda; the empty silence of his house. The candles had been lit; no movement. He was going to call out. He was waiting for his guard. They’d never come.
“Sit,” said the woman in white.
The girl moved her gaze back to the pond.
Underwater, the tinted goldfish slipped about, skimming her thin fingers, spinning, making loops. They’re dancing, she thought. They have their own world, there, where they can play. Do they see me, peering at them, from above?
Drop a speck of blood into the water and they rise, seek to get it before it disappears. They rise for food.
Her sister stepped through the darkness by the pond.
“You have a good reputation,” she said. “Shigeo. They say you have a beautiful mind. They say you tried to stand against your father, the bright Seikiyo… yet you are a man caught between two mountains. The Keishi on the left, and the retired-emperor on the right. They say you’ve tried always to do good.
” She took another step, raising her head until it entered the light. “I think that I believe them.”
Her face had its marks, its ancient letters, shifting and fading in the torchlight.
The girl watched.
He said, “Did they send you here…”
“I met your brother once,” her sister said. “Long ago… But no, no one sent me. At least, not now. I was sent a very long time ago. Now I’m back.”
She sat on the veranda. “They say this is the start of a new age. Have you heard, lord? An age of plagues. Come,” she nodded to the small stone steps, “sit with me. I hope some better things may soon arrive. Come pray with me, lord ame’in.”
He didn’t move.
“Do you not hope so, too?”
“Get out,” he said. “Now.” He’d drawn his sword. He’d stepped forward. The girl hadn’t noticed when.
She smiled. “Yes. Good warrior. Good man. Do you know who I am?”
“Guards,” he hissed.
No one would come. The air fell still. It’s waiting for us, the girl thought. Not much longer now.
“Do you know who I am?” the woman asked again. “Because… sometimes, I can’t remember. Maybe one day.”
She trailed off. She sat calmly. She was unbothered by the cold.
“Come,” she said, “please sit. I have something very important to tell you.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You are in pain. I see it in your eyes. I’ve been taught to help. I was a shrine maiden, once. Long ago. But now… now there is so much pain. Everywhere. Too much… What I want, sometimes I can’t remember. But I know what must be done. I am the messenger of the gods, that is who I am.”
She looked up. “Do you miss her? Your Nariko, the Blue Lady whom you loved. They killed her, you know, shot an arrow in her back. The body lay there, it was lost, in the fighting. Someone’s horse trampled on it at the end. Her perfect little skull…”
“Stop,” he said. More a cry than a word.
“What if you could see her again? Would you like to see her? Your beloved?”
“Enough of this,” he snarled, heading for the gate.
But then he stopped.
The girl had stood, with her head at an inquisitive angle, watching him.
“Hello.” She wiped a hand across her face. She looked at her hand, now stained red, and leaned over to wipe it on the snow.
Shigeo gripped the sword, pointing it at her.
“What is this…”