When we met Lord Yoshiie for a proper audience the next morning, you could hardly tell he’d been in a drunken fight for his life the night before. Frankly, he looked in better shape than Kenji, who had overindulged a bit once the fighting was over. Lord Yoshiie did, however, appear a little bit uncomfortable. I had thought it might be related to his wounds but then realized he was pulling at the edge of his formal robes at the neck and waist as if he didn’t like the feel of them.
“ . . . a warrior since he was fifteen . . . ”
It occurred to me that Lord Yoshiie might have chosen a less formal venue the day before because he was simply not comfortable in formal robes and setting. Now he sat on a cushion on a raised dais beside Prince Kanemore, not bothering to pretend his heavily brocaded and stiff Court robes weren’t making him itch. He bestowed gifts on Kenji, Lord Yasuna, and myself, which was only proper under the circumstances. He had clearly been coached on the proper etiquette. Matters only became more interesting when the formal part of the audience was over.
“Lord Yasuna,” he said. “I have been instructed by the Emperor himself to take you with us as we return to Mutsu.”
Yasuna bowed. “As the Emperor commands.”
Yoshiie leaned forward. “You and I—and I’m sure the gentlemen present—know this is likely pointless, yet the Emperor will have it so, and I will obey, and thus so must you. You may arrange a personal escort and whatever attendants you require, I would suggest no more than six of each, as you will also be required to provision them yourself. We are both at the Emperor’s command, and so I will not consider you my prisoner unless you make it necessary. Please do not do so.”
“You are generous, my lord,” Yasuna said.
Yoshiie grunted. “No, I am not. I am grateful to you, as I am to His Highness and Lord Yamada and Master Kenji. I am very aware that, without your timely aid, I would likely be dead. However, my gratitude does not lessen my obligations to my father and clan. We will be at war, and I cannot guarantee the safety of any of you,” he said, glancing at Kenji and me. “I am also grateful for any assistance you may be able to offer. But I want one thing understood, Lord Yasuna—I must subdue the Mutsu Abe at all costs. If I am wrong and you do in fact have some influence among your kinsmen, I will make use of it. That is how matters stand.”
Later, Kenji and I ate the noon meal together in the mansion’s garden where I had met Lady Kuzunoha only two days before.
“I’m not sure if I find Lord Yoshiie’s candor refreshing or troubling,” Kenji said between mouthfuls of rice.
I sighed. “Why choose? It can be both. I found his honesty refreshing but his bluntness a bit worrisome.”
“I would simply expect someone of noble family to be a bit more at home within the capital,” Kenji said. “It’s clear to me Yoshiie does not feel at home here, despite being perfectly willing to take advantage of its . . . diversions. I’m certain this is not what worries you.”
“Actually it is, in an abstract way. I’ve been observing the young man, to the extent I have been able to do so. It’s not his manners which concern me, but rather his mannerism. His entire bearing. Imagine, for a moment, that Prince Kanemore as a young man had no obligations to the Court and was able to follow his inclination. What do you think he would be like?”
Kenji pondered, but not for very long. “I think,” he said, “His Highness would be a great deal like our young Lord Yoshiie. He has always been as much bushi as prince.”
“Now consider all the provinces, not just Mutsu: Miyagi, Eichizen, Oe . . . all of them. There are provincial noble families who share responsibility for both governing and enforcing the writ of the Emperor. And they are all producing sons just like Yoshiie—more at home in armor and on a horse than sitting through the New Year’s poetry competition. Fighting for their lord and clan first of all and the Emperor as a distant second, if at all.
“Probably not exactly his equal,” Kenji observed dryly, “but I take your point.”
“Many have kuge branches, such as produced Lord Yasuna. A worthy man, but as we have seen, his kinsmen outside the capital look to their own provinces, their own holdings, and seek to expand them. Do other governors and military commanders, like Lord Sadato and his father before him, see those places as their personal possessions and not held in trust for the Emperor?”
“No one would dare—” Kenji began, then stopped. “A foolish thing to say. They already have, haven’t they?”
“Yoshitoki and his son Sadato are proof of it. I don’t question Lord Yoshiie’s loyalty, mind,” I said. “But one does have to wonder how deep a particular stream runs. The Minamoto have been fighting the Abe for almost twelve years because the Emperor told them to. He also promised them the military governorship of Mutsu province if they succeed. Do we really wonder which of the two is the greater inducement?”
Kenji took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If there are greater matters afoot it is even more important we tend our own garden, Lord Yamada. So. What do we do now?”
“We go see Master Chang Yu, as I have been wanting to do since we arrived here. I have some questions I believe he can answer.”
Master Chang’s shop was near the Karasuma section, which was a bit of a walk since we were not mounted this time. Not that I minded terribly. Horses had their place, but I was used to walking, and I liked it—less chance of being thrown or trampled.
The shop was deceptively small, not unlike Master Chang himself. The front part of the building was his alleged real business, selling Chinese medicines and herbal compounds. There was a pungent blend of ginger and lemongrass and a dozen more smells I could neither identify nor avoid. Master Chang’s compounding table was not in use, and his chair was empty. A girl of perhaps fifteen was watching the shop.
“Gentlemen, how may I assist you?” she asked.
“You can tell your master Lord Yamada is here to see him. You may also tell him it would be useless to try and slip out the back door, so he may as well talk to me.”
The girl frowned but quickly bowed and passed through a curtained doorway. There was a few moments delay, and then Master Chang Yu himself appeared in the doorway. He was about a head shorter than Kenji, who was perhaps half that much shorter than I was. He had a long gray mustache and wispy beard and he managed to look at once plump and tiny. Master Chang had kept the same shop in the capital since I had known him, and that stretched back twenty years or so. Over the years he had not changed at all—he still wore the robes of his foreign homeland, and I knew his clothing choice was driven as much by business concerns as nostalgia and habit. He still spoke our language with an atrocious accent, except when he needed to speak plainly and be understood, and not just play the role of aged Chinese merchant a long way from home.
Master Chang looked chagrined. “Armed men, Lord Yamada? Seriously? One would think these old bones were a danger to someone.”
“I did inform your servant slipping out was useless, but you had to test me to see if I was bluffing. I’m not above such things, but in this case? No.”
Prince Kanemore had insisted Kenji and I take a two-man escort into the city. Since they were there, I had decided to make use of them, in case Master Chang was in his usual uncooperative frame of mind, and so the matter proved.
“One should not blame an old man for trying to avoid trouble,” Master Chang said. “And you are trouble, Lord Yamada. You do know that, yes?”
“I do not think anyone knows it better than Lord Yamada,” Kenji said, “though personally I know it better than most.”
“I need information, Master Chang,” I said, ignoring Kenji’s comment, “and once I have it, I will gladly take myself and my trouble elsewhere. This concerns a man named Otomo no Tenshin. I think you know him.”
The old man shrugged. “I suppose. Members of the Otomo Clan have been my customers for years, as have Fujiwara and Minamoto and Taira and . . . well, nearly all of them. I even get the occasional royal transaction.”
“You taught this one how to make shikigami. There are more than a few in the capital with the skill, but those at the very highest level? Nearly all were trained by you,” I said.
“I suppose I should be flattered, but I’m an old man and far past such things,” Master Chang said. “Assuming what you say is true, what crimes have I committed?”
“Many, I would assume,” I said, “but none I care about. I said I came for information, and information is all I want from you. Nothing more. Do you recognize this script?” I produced the remains of the creature I had discovered at the Widow Tamahara’s. Master Chang examined it, his face expressionless.
“If I answer your questions, do you promise to leave me out of whatever endeavor you’re involved with this time? The last incident in which I cooperated with you nearly lost me my life.”
“Not even close,” I said, “but for what it’s worth, I will settle for the information, as I said. Your personal involvement will not be required. You have my word.”
“In that case . . . I recognize the work of Lord Tenshin,” he said, “and yes, it was I who taught him the art, or rather a portion of it. He already knew a great deal when he came to me, but he wanted a few more shall we say . . . specific techniques.”
“Such as a creature which can manifest already armed with a weapon? Steel, for all intents and purposes, but no less ethereal than the creature itself and returns to paper if the creature is destroyed?”
“Child’s play,” said Master Chang, looking smug. “Though the technique does take more concentration and preparation time. Lord Tenshin already knew that trick. What he wanted to know was how to make the creatures last, and how to create one with more sense than a rutting boar-hog.”
“Please explain,” I said.
“After your own dealings with lesser creations, isn’t it obvious? The creatures are powerful but limited. Now take the example of my servant Mitsuko-chan over here—I’ll wager you haven’t yet gleaned her true nature, despite your wealth of experience. Am I right?”
I admit I was taken aback, and judging from the look on Kenji’s face, he was as startled as I was. I took another long hard look at the girl, but I finally had to admit defeat. “You’re saying she’s a shikigami?”
Master Yu’s expression passed smug and went on to extraordinarily pleased with himself. “Impressive, yes? Doesn’t she make you wonder?”
“A servant you don’t have to pay, feed, or house, who obeys your every command without question?” Kenji said. “Why would we wonder?”
I knew why, and so did Kenji, though I knew Kenji pretended otherwise to draw the man out. “I don’t know how she managed to escape my notice, but there is a basic problem with the creatures,” I said. “They obey your every command, no more and no less. She would have to be told everything you wanted her to do, or it would not be done. She would not notice, for instance, that the door had fallen off or a particular rare herb was in short supply, except if you remembered to tell her to watch for those things. She would sweep the floor at a certain time every day, whether it needed sweeping or not, if the building was on fire or not. They are decent agents and assassins when single-minded devotion to a task is required, but they make terrible servants. Managing one such more than a day or so would be exhausting and hardly worth the trouble.”
Master Chang grinned, showing the gap of a missing eyetooth. “Now suppose I were to tell you my charming servant here has no such limitations, and that she has been minding my shop while I work, requiring no additional instructions whatsoever for the past three months?”
“I’d say your initial instructions must have been very thorough,” Kenji offered.
Master Chang dismissed Kenji’s comment with a wave of his plump hand. “Rubbish. Even I can’t think of everything. Test her, if you doubt me.”
“Very well.” Kenji approached the girl, who merely watched him with big dark eyes. “What am I, girl?”
“You are a man. You are dressed as a priest.”
“I am a priest,” Kenji said.
“I will make note of that,” she said. “I have seen priests before. They carried themselves differently than you do.”
“Different how?” he asked.
“Like I know priests to bear themselves, all their mannerisms and actions. You bear yourself as a man.”
A habit he has been quite unable to break, I thought but said nothing. I was curious to see how Kenji would approach the problem of Mitsuko.
“Let me ask you a question . . . Mitsuko, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are the medicinal uses of a rug in traditional Chinese healing?”
I think Kenji expected the creature to turn to Master Chang for guidance. I rather expected the same; we were both surprised.
“None I am aware of,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.
Kenji frowned. “Did Master Chang tell you to say that?”
The shikigami called Mitsuko answered immediately. “He did not. How would my master know someone would ask about the medicinal value of a rug? It seems to be a silly question. Is that how you intended it, sir?”
I couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Enough. Master Chang, I am impressed. And you taught this technique to Lord Tenshin?”
“He paid handsomely for the privilege, I assure you. Yet there are limitations, even with such a wonder. It pains me to say, but Mitsuko-chan probably won’t last another week.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because volition still requires a living spirit. If I’m not supplying it, then it has to come from someone else.”
Kenji scowled. “Did you—?”
“Please, Master Kenji. I am no murderer. I am of the Way . . . not your Way, but an older one.”
“There is no older Way—”
I interrupted. “While I am not against a rousing philosophical discussion, gentlemen, we have more urgent business. Please go on, Master Chang.”
“I was simply going to say that we understand the principles of universal balance, the yin and the yang. A ghost is a contradiction. It is a human spirit but it has no body. As long as it remains in this world it will always be incomplete, out of balance. My technique makes an artificial body, which will take on the appearance of the once-living person as soon as the spirit manifests within it. Naturally, if there is no available spirit to fill the void, the technique does not work. But to answer the question you have not yet asked, this is why you did not recognize Mitsuko as a shikigami. She has a human soul. She is human, in most ways that matter. So this is why she triggered no spiritual alarms in you.”
“But why does it last only for such a short time?” I asked.
“Again, we’re back to the balance I spoke of, Lord Yamada. While a void always wants to be filled, a human spirit was never intended to live in a house of paper, and the sustaining power of the initial charm is not unlimited, even with normal shikigami. I can already see signs of this in Mitsuko. Three months, I have found, is about the limit.”
Whatever hints there were of Mitsuko’s imminent dissolution, they were invisible to me. She appeared perfectly fine and healthy, but that reminded me of the question Master Chang had not yet answered. “But for a traditional shikigami—not one like Mitsuko—I believe Lord Tenshin spoke of a way to make them last. I’m guessing he meant they could be made less prone to being destroyed?”
“Indeed,” Master Chang said. “In some ways a more difficult problem than the creation of Mitsuko. These creatures have many weaknesses, as you have discovered—physical damage, for one. Then fire and water for obvious reasons—one destroys the paper, the other ruins the ink which holds the charm in place. Even the most powerful shikigami can be undone by a simple spring shower.”
“Or saké,” Kenji said. “Though it broke my heart to waste it.”
Master Chang smiled. “Ah, yes, I did hear about this. News does travel in my circles, Lord Yamada.”
“Unfortunately one cannot always count on the rain or barrels of saké when fighting a shikigami,” I said. “But fighting the creatures would be more difficult if Lord Tenshin has a way to overcome that limitation.”
Master Chang sighed. “I’m afraid he does.”
The technique Master Chang then described was one in which the ink could be mixed with the white of an egg in certain proportions, with one extra ingredient—blood. “The magician’s own blood,” Master Chang hastened to add. “The secret is to bind both the ink and the magician’s will to the paper, as well as impart some of the magician’s yang energy to the creature as well, and the link created by the blood permits the creature to continue drawing this energy from the magician. I call it the Blood Thread technique. As you can imagine, this method takes a high toll on the magician, far in excess of the amount of blood used. If you’re concerned about an army of these creatures, be comforted—it would take a strong young onmyoji to create and maintain even one of them. Any more and the effort would kill them.”
“How about over time, could more be created?” Kenji asked.
Master Chang drew a deep breath and then grunted. “No, that’s not possible, even for a young, healthy man. As I said, the Blood Thread continues to draw the magician’s life energy so long as it exists, so the magician has no chance to recover his strength. The longer the creature lasts, the weaker the magician will become. Even two such creations would drain the magician to his death in a very short time, and then the creatures would die as well. They can live only so long as the magician does. It’s a powerful—but very dangerous and limited—technique.”
I had an inspiration. “But what would happen if the method you just described was combined with the technique you used to create Mitsuko?”
“A continuing supply of living energy fueling a created body with its own volition . . . I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yes, you had,” I said. “Or you’re not nearly as clever as I know you to be. Why you didn’t do this with Mitsuko is obvious, but if the idea hasn’t occurred to Lord Tenshin, I have badly over-estimated him.”
“It’s true I’m no longer a young strong man,” Master Chang said. “I don’t have the living energy to spare. Lord Tenshin, on the other hand . . . yes, it might work. Like Mitsuko, it would have its human memories, perhaps even believe it was still human and go on with its perceived life as normal if the transition happened close to death—ghosts tend to be confused, in the first hours of their creation. Yet the link does not simply power the creature, it gives the magician the ability to control the shikigami, even at a distance. I would not do such a thing even if I could, but Lord Tenshin might, given the need—in is his own perception of ‘need.’ I have to say his sense of the ethical balance of the universe is somewhat lacking. Still, he paid well enough.”
I grunted. “For the right price, I’m guessing the proper balance of the universe is open to interpretation?”
“Always,” Master Chang said without hesitation. “And price doesn’t have anything to do with the matter.”
“We failed to recognize Mitsuko. Is there a way to identify these creatures? I mean, short of cutting their heads off and hoping they turn into paper?”
The old man grinned. “One such as Mitsuko is sustained by the power of the charm, as I said, and so has no need to eat or drink. More to the point, she cannot eat or drink. Her body is real enough, but her reality is a physical manifestation of a charm written on a piece of paper. If she were to have, say, a cup of saké, the contrast between her actual physical reality and the perception she has of herself . . . well, it’s like a sleeper being slapped awake. The shock is simply too much and the soul flees, destroying the charm. I discovered this by accident with a previous servant. I have no doubt the same would apply to a creature created by the Blood Thread technique.”
“So if we suspect such a one, all we would need to do would be to get it to eat or drink to discover the truth. Which implies we’d first need cause for suspicion, and otherwise these things are indistinguishable from a normal human.”
“Just so,” Master Chang agreed. “You do see the problem.”
Kenji glanced at Mitsuko. “It’s not right, Master Chang.”
The old man frowned. “What do you mean?”
“A spirit should be exorcised so it may return to the wheel of death and rebirth to work out its karma. You create a trap for them and turn them into servants. You are delaying their eventual transcendence!”
“It is not a trap, Master Kenji,” Chang said. “It’s a restoration of balance. I admit what you say might apply if Mitsuko was a confused spirit who was not aware of her situation, but Mitsuko chose this. Like a spirit being reborn into the physical world on the Wheel of Death and Rebirth. She simply doesn’t remember doing so.”
“How convenient she does not remember,” Kenji said.
“For her own sake she does not remember, Master Kenji. It is an act of kindness. No matter, she has little time in any case. I’m sorry, Mitsuko, but as I can see Master Kenji does not believe me, I am commanding you to remember, and answer Master Kenji’s questions.”
Through all this discussion—the parts which concerned her and the parts which did not—Mitsuko had stood at her place beside the cubbyholes and crockery jars that held Master Chang’s wares, and her expression had not changed a flicker. But now as Kenji approached, I saw a touch of fear.
“I want to ask you something,” Kenji said. “Will you answer me truthfully?”
“I have no reason to lie to you, sir,” Mitsuko said.
“Not even on orders from your master?”
She actually smiled slightly then, and I think that was the last stone in the wall. I was no longer able to think of Mitsuko as an “it” or a created thing. Whatever passed for flesh in Master Chang’s creation, I no longer had any doubt he had told the truth about Mitsuko—there was a person in there.
“If so ordered, I would obey,” she said, “but how could he have known what you would ask?”
While personally I would not entirely rule out the possibility, I silently conceded it was a bit far-fetched, even for someone as subtle as Master Chang. Kenji apparently came to the same conclusion.
“Master Chang said you chose to come here, to . . . accept, the body you are wearing now. Is this true?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “I remember now. It’s true.”
“May I ask why?”
Mitsuko wasn’t smiling now. She looked haunted. “Because it was better.”
“Better than what? Being a ghost?”
She bowed her head. “I was always a ghost, sir,” Mitsuko said softly. “Even when I was alive. I had no home, I had nothing. I was nothing. I died in the street and my body was raked up like a dead leaf. I lingered because I could not believe I had any place else to go.”
“Then Master Chang offered you a place,” I said.
She looked up then. “More than a place, sir. A purpose,” Mitsuko said. “A chance to be something, to someone. Even just as a servant. Something. Yes, I chose this. I only wish . . . ” She stopped.
“Yes?” Kenji urged.
“I only wish it had lasted longer,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. A moment later her appearance changed. Her shape grew wavy, like someone who had just stepped into a fog. She turned translucent, transparent, and then there was nothing left but a scrap of paper that fluttered to the floor.
Master Chang shook his head. “You may not believe this, gentlemen, but I really will miss her.”
Kenji looked grim. “There is a temple nearby, Lord Yamada,” he said. “When we leave here, I would like to go there for a while.”
Certainly there was a temple nearby. This was Kyoto. There was always a temple nearby. I didn’t say this. Nor did I ask why we would be visiting a temple. I had a feeling I knew.
“In which case you’ll need this,” Master Chang said. He reached behind the table and pulled out a bag of uncooked rice. He offered this to Kenji, who just stared at it.
“For your conscience?”
Master Chang grunted. “Think what you will of me, but my conscience is my own concern. This is for the offering,” he said. “And prayers for Mitsuko’s soul. That is why you’re going to the temple, is it not?”
“Yes,” Kenji said.
“Then do it properly. Take the offering. For Mitsuko’s sake, not mine.”
Kenji took the rice, and I followed him back out into the streets of the capital. The temple was a short walk. They always were. Kenji went inside, and I found a spot in the temple garden and waited while the two bushi accompanying us tried not to look bored. Temples had never been my favorite places, nor did I usually enter one voluntarily unless there was dire need. I tended to associate them most often with funerals, as that was one of their main functions, and the role they had played far too often in my experience. As for Mitsuko, a proper funeral would have taken days we did not have to spare, but prayers and offerings for the departed were the next best thing. I thought about chiding Kenji for doing this for a person he didn’t even know, and without payment, but decided against it.
Kenji was, at least in some regards, as bad an example of the priestly class as one would ever hope to find; he drank, he ignored the dietary restrictions, and even now in his fifties he was a pursuer of women, a surprising number of whom he managed to catch. Yet he was very much a priest in one regard—he had an extremely clear vision of his own moral center, where the line could be drawn, what lay on one side, and what resided firmly on the other. The plight of the unfortunate Mitsuko had clearly crossed that line.
When Kenji emerged from the temple, he joined me on my rock in the garden. “Did you do what you needed to do?” I asked.
“Yes. Did you?”
“What we learned from Master Chang were things we mostly already knew, except for the technique which created—or rather, resurrected—Mitsuko. If Master Chang’s description of the process is correct, however, we cannot expect an army of such creatures. But consider, a shikigami which can withstand water like a human being, indeed, one which can pass as a human being, undetectable by either of us? This concerns me greatly.”
“If we’d been dealing with even one such at the Widow Tamahara’s, for example . . . ” Kenji didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t have to.
I had considered that scenario. “Lord Tenshin expected Lord Yoshiie to be indoors at the Widow Tamahara’s establishment. His strategy was brilliant, but his tactics were flawed. He considered the chance of rain but fortunately the saké attack didn’t occur to him. He’s very clever, but not infallible.”
“I often say the same of you, Lord Yamada. What do we do now?”
“I intend to stop by my rooms at the Widow Tamahara’s establishment and consider if there’s anything there I might need to take with me. If you have any immediate unfinished business in the capital, I’d suggest you see to it now. We will be bound for Mutsu province very soon.”
“I already have everything I need, so I’ll stay with you for now, if you don’t mind,” Kenji said, looking a bit doleful. “Most of my unfinished business is best settled by me being somewhere else for a considerable amount of time.”
“Mutsu does have the advantage of being very far away,” I said. “Let’s go.”
When we arrived at the Widow Tamahara’s, we left our escort on station at the gate and went inside. I had been dreading returning to this place, considering the mess we’d made of it the previous evening, but I needn’t have worried. Most of the damage had already been repaired, and the Widow Tamahara herself, at least by comparison to her scowling demeanor, was in an almost jovial mood.
“I see your shop has been mostly set to rights,” I said.
She grunted. “Thanks to Prince Kanemore. A gang of workmen showed up at my door this morning and said they were hired by His Highness, Prince Kanemore. He even sent payment for the saké your friend there was flinging around the room.”
“The waste of it grieved me even more than it did you,” Kenji said.
“I would not wager on that,” she said.
As for the saké, truth be told I could still smell it clinging to the air of the room, for all that everything had been freshly scrubbed. Since the room always smelled slightly of saké, I had no doubt the intensity of the aroma would fade in time. “Prince Kanemore is the most generous of men,” I said. “Is everyone all right?”
“One of my guards has a knot on his head the size of a lantern,” she said. “But otherwise everyone escaped unscathed . . . Lord Yamada, first there was my previous guard, and now these things. Am I to expect that such strangeness will continue as long as you are under my roof?”
“It’s possible,” I said, “but unlikely, as I will not be under your roof for some months. If the place burns down in my absence, it will have nothing to do with me, I swear.”
“Hardly comforting.” The old lady waved a single bony hand in dismissal. “Fine then. But make sure your rent is paid for the interval before you leave.”
“Tamahara-san, before I go—did those workmen go anywhere else on the grounds?”
She frowned. “No, I would have seen. They came in, did as they were directed, and left again. Frankly, I could use more like them. Why, what do you suspect?”
“Oh, nothing at all. Just curious.”
Kenji followed me out onto the veranda. “Do you suppose Prince Kanemore really did send those workmen?”
I considered. “It is the sort of thing he might do and fail to mention. And considering Lord Yoriyoshi is more likely to put his son in a cage than to let him come back here, I don’t see what an enemy would have to gain by such a deception. And if the Widow Tamahara is correct, they had no opportunity for mischief even if mischief had been the intent. But we had best take a look around the compound while we are here.”
We made as thorough a search as we could, and since Kenji was neither drinking nor distracted at the moment, I trusted his heightened sensitivity to the supernatural to detect the things I could not see. Neither of us found anything amiss.
“We can ask Prince Kanemore about it if we get the chance, but I think perhaps we are overly cautious.”
“When extremely clever people are trying to kill you? There is no such thing as ‘overly cautious,’ ” Kenji muttered.
I had no disagreement with that. Back to our original mission, we went to my rooms. Referring to them as “rooms” perhaps gave them too much credit: I had one six-mat room and one other, which was little more than an alcove, for extra storage. I had one small chest for brushes, paper, and inkstones. I slept on a cushion on the floor, covered with less or more layers of clothing, depending on the weather. I already carried my dagger and tachi. There was little else to consider save some extra clothing, which I began to gather into a bundle while Kenji watched.
“I have not asked how you feel about going to Mutsu,” he said.
I knew what he meant. There had been many wars against the Emishi over the years, and one of them had destroyed my father and thus my clan, or rather the scheming of a former Fujiwara official had led my father to be branded a traitor to the Emperor. What had been taken from my father and thus my family would likely never be restored, and while I had gained some measure of revenge long ago, restoration of my father’s good name seemed forever beyond my reach. Prince Kanemore had requested we go to Mutsu, and he had done so in the full knowledge of my family’s history, friend or no, because he believed it necessary. Considering Lord Tenshin’s abilities and the Mutsu Abe’s obvious ambitions, so did I. This did not mean I was fond of the idea, and I said so.
“If there were a choice? I would not go. But there is none. For either of us.”
Kenji just sighed. “You will do what your friend asks. I will do what the Crown Prince’s royal uncle commands. Either way? No choice at all.”
When we emerged from my rooms, I was carrying my bundle. We found Kaoru in the courtyard, standing beside the Widow Tamahara’s one scrawny sakura. Only it was no longer quite so scrawny looking, now that it had begun to bloom. I was a little ashamed to realize I had not even noticed.
She smiled at us. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes,” I said but without much enthusiasm. Soon the sakura all over the capital would be in glorious bloom, winter would have officially released its grip on the land, and spring would be here again. Time to put the winter clothing away, time for pruning, time for planting . . .
Time for war.