Consequences

by Nancy Sauer

Editing by Fred Wan

There was thunder rumbling in the distance and Kakita Noritoshi paused to listen and wonder if the storm would move in his direction. He studied the sky for signs, then shrugged and moved on. His choice of where to sleep tonight hinged on avoiding dangers sharper than getting wet, and the dark was coming on.

•

Bayushi Sunetra sighed inaudibly as the rain started. She hated getting caught in a downpour, but the rain was a piece of luck for her – it would obscure the sounds of her approach, and help cover the signs of her departure. Not that she needed luck, but a professional made use of every advantage the situation gave her. She settled in and waited for her moment.

•

Kakita Mai slid open the door and looked out over the garden, listening to the steady patter of rain on leaves. The sound brought to her memories of happier times at home, when she would lay in her husband’s arms and listen to the rain in their garden, the one they had designed together. Mai closed her eyes and murmured a brief prayer to her ancestors. “Stay dry, my husband,” she whispered as she closed the door. “Stay safe.”

The sweet notes of a biwa floated through the air, and Mai turned and gave her son a smile. “Ichiro, I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”

The boy looked up from the instrument and gave her an imploring look. “Can’t I stay up just a little longer? Please? I can hear a song in my head and if I don’t write it down now I’ll forget it!”

Mai frowned slightly. She had feared at first that Ichiro’s musical studies would suffer from their time away from the Academy, but the boy had continued to practice his instruments every day. He had also become fascinated by the simple, rough-hewn songs of the peasantry around them, leaving her with a new worry about the purity of his style when he returned to the Academy. Still, Noritoshi took such joy in their son’s musical accomplishments; it surely would do little harm if he had a few simple tunes to show his father at their next meeting. “Very well,” she said. “For a little while.”

“Thank you, Mother!” Ichiro said, and then went back to picking out notes. Mai smiled and went into her own room and settled down in front of her writing desk. She had little to do with her time these days, and so had begun recopying and editing her old pillow-books, preparing them for publication. There were many ways of influencing the courts, and a widely circulated diary could work wonders.

She had copied out several pages when her concentration was broken by a discordant jangle of sound, followed by silence. Mai paused, waiting, but the music did not return. Frowning she laid her brush down and headed for the main room, wondering if the boy had managed to break another string already. “Ichiro, I thought I told you–” Her voice broke off as the door slid all the way open and revealed its inhabitants.

Ichiro was sitting where she had left him, white-faced and staring. In the center of the room was a slim figure entirely dressed in damp, close-fitting black clothing. As Mai took two steps in the figure turned around to face her. “Good evening, Kakita Mai,” it said in feminine tones.

“I am sorry, there must be some mistake,” Mai said calmly. “I am Ashidaka Midori.” That was the name she had given out in this district, along with the story that she was a widow come to live quietly on the remainder of her money while she raised her son.

Sunetra chuckled. “A very convincing delivery, Mai-san. A lesser soul would have been taken in completely. But I know who you are, and I have no doubts.” She crossed the room in several brisk strides, preparing to grab Mai. The Kakita woman grabbed Sunetra’s leading arm and pivoted, sending her staggering towards the wall. Surprised at herself for falling for such a move, Sunetra quickly recovered, spun, and charged back. Mai had taken the moment to scoop up her son’s biwa and was preparing to use it like a club. Sunetra grabbed the biwa as it came down and pulled, using Mai’s move against her. She didn’t recover as quickly as Sunetra did, and collided with one of the wall’s supporting beams. Before she could register the pain Sunetra was there, spinning her around and shoving her against the beam.

Sunetra smiled. “You are a credit to your family, Kakita Mai. And so your death will hurt them just that much more.” Before the other woman could react she pulled out one of her daggers and stabbed her through the heart. Mai gasped and raised an arm, then slumped down. Sunetra bent down to pull the dagger out and turned around to look at Ichiro. The boy was still in the room, standing up against the opposite wall and staring at his mother’s body in uncomprehending horror.

“Your mother is dead,” Sunetra said, dropping the bloody dagger in front of her. “Murdered by my hand.” She walked towards the boy slowly, giving him time to feel the terror of her approach. When she was a few feet from him she went down on one knee, putting herself at his eye level, and held up another dagger in a sheath. “Here, I’ll give you a chance to avenge her. It will be easy – just take this dagger and do it. A slash across the neck is all that it will take.”

Ichiro’s eyes were wide in his too pale face, and they darted rapidly from Sunetra to the dagger and back again. “I c-c-c-can’t,” he croaked out. “F-f-f-father said.”

“You can’t?” Sunetra said, her voice rich in contempt. “What are the Crane coming to, when a samurai refuses to avenge a parent’s murder?” She stowed the dagger away and leaned in towards Ichiro, her blue eyes boring into his. “Tell your father that he has failed,” she said. “Tell him–you–failed.” She rose, turned her back on the boy, and left.

•

He could not have said what it was, but Noritoshi knew that something was wrong the moment the house came into view. He stopped, alert for danger, then hurried up to the door. Pausing briefly to listen he slid the door aside and went in. “Mai? Ichiro?” Ignoring the nicety of removing his sandals he moved towards the main room, where he could sense a presence. “Mai?” Noritoshi slid open the door to reveal a woman in Dragon colors kneeling in the middle of the room. She looked up from the journal she was leafing through and bowed. “May I be of some service to you, Kakita-sama?”

Noritoshi tensed slightly at the title; his clothing was nondescript and he had no mon to identify him. Was this one of Jimen’s agents? “Who are you?” he asked. “Why did you call me that?”

“I am Kitsuki Mayako,” she said. “The woman who resided here was clearly a Kakita noblewoman. Kakita Mai was the wife of Kakita Noritoshi, the Kakita daimyo, and Noritoshi is known to be a talented swordsman in spite of the loss of his eye. You were calling for Mai, so I deduced that such was the woman’s real name and that you are Kakita Noritoshi.”

Noritoshi felt his stomach clench as Mayako’s use of the past tense sunk in. “Mai….” He could not finish the sentence.

“Last week a woman was stabbed through the heart in this house. As the neighbors identified her as the woman who had moved in last winter, I fear she must have been your wife.” Mayako looked away from Noritoshi for a moment, using the time to bind her journal up with a twist of ribbon and shove it into the sleeve of her kimono. “At this point we do not know who ordered her death.”

“And my son?” Noritoshi asked quietly. He dreaded the answer, but he had to know.

“The boy was taken to the local shrine and put in the care of the monk who tends it. He appears to be shaken by the experience, but is otherwise unharmed.”

Noritoshi took a deep breath. “Unharmed? Are you sure? There was no sign that he had been poisoned?”

“None at all, and there has been a week for any sign of such to appear.” Mayako considered asking why Noritoshi feared poison, but that led to the question of why the wife and child of the Kakita daimyo had been living in hiding, and that led to still other questions. Instead she said, “I can take you to him now.”

“Yes,” Noritoshi said. As the Kitsuki stood up it occurred to him to wonder why the woman was here at all. “But why are you investigating this? Why are there no Crane magistrates here?”

“Ah, I apologize,” Mayako said, and withdrew the seal of an Emerald Magistrate from her obi pouch. “I was passing through the district a few days ago when I heard of the incident. As it seemed like Peony’s work, I persuaded the local magistrate to pass the case on to me.”

“Peony?”

“The investigators of my family are frequently able to identify an assassin’s work by the details of their style, and for convenience’s sake assign them names. Peony, as we call her, had been very active from 1155 to 1161 and then apparently died or retired. But she became active again last year, which is highly unusual.”

Noritoshi turned this fact over in his mind, trying to attach it to Jimen. “You have no doubt that it is the same person?”

“None. Peony’s style is very distinctive – economical, but with a decided flair for drama.”

Whatever the information’s importance, Noritoshi decided, it could wait. “Let us go to my son now.”

•

Ichiro was sitting in the shrine’s small garden, staring listlessly into the koi pond. At the sound of Noritoshi’s voice he looked up, then jumped to his feet and rushed over to his father. Noritoshi gathered his son into his arms and held him tight, feeling the pain of Mai’s death rush over him again.

“Father,” Ichiro said. He hugged his father with all the strength in his small arms. “Father, I failed.” He started sobbing. “I c-c-c-could have killed her, and I didn’t!”

“What?” Noritoshi said. “What are you talking about?”

“The assassin,” Ichiro said breathlessly. “After she killed Mother she offered me a dagger. I could have killed her! I should have killed her!” He pulled away from his father and flailed his arms in frustration. “I should have! Should have!”

Poison, Noritoshi thought with a chill. His son had been given a poison too insidious for even the most skilled healer to detect, a poison that could destroy not just him, but all of the Kakita. “Ichiro!” he said, grabbing the boy by the arm. “What did I tell you about blades?”

“That I must never draw one,” Ichiro said. “I was born under the Kakita curse, and must never take up a blade, for any reason. But she killed Mother!” His voice climbed in pitch and volume. “She killed my mother! I should have taken it and killed her!”

Noritoshi shook him. “You will not,” he said, his one good eye blazing.

“I–” Ichiro started to say, and Noritoshi grabbed him again.

“You will not touch a blade.” He stared into his son’s terrified eyes for a moment, and then pulled him into an embrace. “Ichiro. You are angry at the assassin. That is good. But someday you will be the Kakita daimyo, and you will be responsible for the family, for the clan, for the Empire. You cannot think only of yourself, or of one person. You must understand this.”

“Yes, Father,” Ichiro whispered. “But she’s going to get away.”

“No, she won’t,” Noritoshi said. “Killing a Kenshinzen’s wife is very unwise.” Ichiro did not answer, but Noritoshi felt his son’s arms go around him in a hug. They stood like that until the sound of a wooden block being beaten echoed through the garden. “Tobei-san is calling us to dinner,” Noritoshi said. “You go and wash up. I will join you in a moment.”

Ichiro’s eyes were still full of misery, and for a moment it looked like he would deny needing to eat. Then he nodded and left. Noritoshi crossed the garden to where Mayako sat utterly absorbed in studying a patch of lilies. “Is it in Peony’s nature to have remained in the area?”

“Unlikely, but ultimately that would depend on the goals of the one who sent her,” Mayako said. She hovered on the edge of asking a question, but remained silent.

“I would like your assistance in finding my wife’s murderer,” Noritoshi said.

“You have it,” Mayako said.

I don’t think so, Sunetra thought to herself. She was laying full-length on a limb of one of the larger trees, staring at the sky through the leaves and listening to the conversation below. She had been lingering in the area to see who would collect the boy, and had recognized the threat Mayako represented as soon as she had shown up. But getting her neutralized was trivially easy, which meant the only real question facing Sunetra was what to do to Noritoshi now. Killing Noritoshi was not an option. The sounds of Mayako and Noritoshi arranging to meet tomorrow evening floated up to her. At least, she thought, she would have time to study her possibilities.

•

Mayako scowled to herself and tried again to focus on the poetry book she was holding. Nothing about this case made sense, and it was making her cross. The wife of the Kakita daimyo was dead, murdered in the house where she was pretending to be a member of a Kakita vassal family. She had had no guards, and that at least made sense – if Noritoshi had thought that guards could keep his family safe he would have left them at the Kakita Academy, which had guards aplenty, not to mention a small army of eager swordsmen. So Mai had been in hiding. She had been doing a fine job of it too; Mayako had yet to find a point where she had broken cover. Against most enemies she probably would have been safe, but whoever had the resources to field Peony was not “most enemies”.

This led back to the question of who had started a feud with the Kakita daimyo, and why Noritoshi was treating them as a threat. Why send his family into hiding, when he could simply challenge the other party to a duel? Or go to Doji Domotai for support? Or to the Emerald Champion? Surely there would be nothing Jimen would enjoy more than having his defeated rival in his debt. Mayako’s thoughts trembled on the edge of understanding and she firmly reigned them in and turned back to her poetry. Some things did not bear thinking on.

Mayako had read halfway through the book when a knock on her door disturbed her. Shoving the book into her sleeve she went to answer it. One of the inn’s servants bowed down when she slid open the door and held out a scroll-case. “Dragon-sama, this just arrived for you,” he said. Mayako accepted the case and returned to her seat. Opening it up she began to read. When she finished she frowned and examined the seal on the case. Satisfied that it was genuine she reread the message again, slowly. When she was finished she sat for a moment in thought, then got up and crossed the room. Picking up her journal she shoved it into her sleeve. Going to the small brazier that warmed her tea she removed the pot on it, then carefully picked the brazier up and carried it out to the garden. Once there she knelt down in front of it, removed a book from her sleeve and page by page fed it to the brazier’s flames. When she was done she carefully stirred the ashes, then carried the brazier back into her room. Then she put on her sandals and hat and left the inn, considering where Noritoshi would be. She needed to move quickly, she knew: speed was the best defense against stealth.

She found Noritoshi in a small meadow outside of the village, practicing. Mayako had intended to call to him when she was some distance away, to forestall any possible accidents, but he turned around and looked at her first. “Kitsuki-san,” he said. “We were not to meet until later; do you have news?”

“Of a fashion,” Mayako said. “I have just received a message from my superior in the Emerald Magistrates. I am to immediately cease all activity in connection with investigating Kakita Mai’s death, destroy my notes, and leave for a new posting in Takaikabe Mura.”

The silence lengthened between them. “I see,” Noritoshi said finally.

“I had thought that you would,” Mayako said. She discreetly shook her arm, and a book tumbled onto the ground beside her. “As you are known to be an honorable man, I have no doubt that you will burn my journal after reading it.”

Noritoshi’s expression didn’t change, and he did not look at the book. “You have my word, Kitsuki-san.”

“The word of a Crane is sufficient,” Mayako said. She bowed. “Carry the Fortunes, Kakita-sama.”

“Carry the Fortunes,” Noritoshi said, returning her bow. “And thank you.”

Mayako acknowledged him with a brief nod, then turned and departed. Noritoshi watched her walk across the across the meadow and into the shaded trees that ringed it, and then went back to his kata.

•

It was rare that Noritoshi allowed himself the luxury of a fire, but tonight he needed both light and destruction and fire answered to both. He looked up from the last page of Mayako’s journal and stared into the crackling flames. He needed to get Peony within range; once that happened he could kill her. He hadn’t the slightest doubt of it. But she was a creature of stealth and shadows, and for all that she had been stalking him the last few days she would not come close enough for him to strike. Wearily he rubbed his good eye. How to lure Peony in? Mayako’s journal had made it clear that she wasn’t the kind of person who rushed into error–all of her actions showed forethought and intelligence. How had the magistrate described her? Economical. Economical, with a flair for drama.

Noritoshi froze for a moment as a thought blazed into life. He was still for a long time, and then he smiled. Tossing the journal on to the fire he laid down and began to plan.

•

The house was just as Sunetra remembered it, except for one change: in the room where she had murdered Mai there was now a small funeral shrine. “So that is what you were doing in the market today, Noritoshi,” she murmured to herself. “Isn’t that touching. Will you tell her you loved her? Ask for guidance? Beg her for forgiveness?” She stared down at it, thinking, and then smiled. There was a possibility here. Quickly and quietly she walked to the door that led to the garden verandah. Sliding the door shut behind her she scrambled up into the eaves and waited.

Evening was falling and the insects in the garden were beginning their nightly chorus when Noritoshi returned to the house. Going to the main room he lit a lantern and knelt down in front of the shrine. He lit a stick of incense, cleared his mind of conscious thought, and waited.

Sunetra carefully poked her head out of the rafters, looked at the silhouette Noritoshi cast against the paper wall, and smiled. He was kneeling with his blind eye towards the garden. Slowly she let herself down, making no noise louder than her own heartbeat, and stood next to the wall. “You took her from a very comfortable life and left her here to die alone. Do you really think she will listen to you now?”

Noritoshi looked up slowly, not letting her disturb his deep calm. “A samurai is never alone. But I suppose you would know nothing of that.”

“I have heard it before,” Sunetra said. “I have killed enough samurai to doubt that particular bit of wisdom.” There was a certain amount of risk in being so close to Noritoshi, but to see where she was he would need to turn around to bring his good eye to bear, which would give her ample time to respond.

“No doubt.” Noritoshi focused on the smoke spiraling up from the incense. His ears told him she was on the verandah, on the other side of wall, but nothing more than that. He sank deeper inside of himself. “I am going to kill you.”

Sunetra didn’t laugh, but humor showed in her voice. “Has a monkey ever caught the moon’s reflection?”

“You are clever,” Noritoshi said. But I have you now. Moving in one continuous arc he drew his katana and threw himself towards the wall, body and blade at full extension. The last handspan of his katana sliced through the paper and continued on to the flesh behind it.

Sunetra tumbled backwards off of the verandah and into the garden. She lay there stunned, mind trying to catch up with what her eyes had seen. A familiar smell filled the air around her, and she automatically identified it as a gut wound. Before she could react to the knowledge the wall exploded outwards and Noritoshi was again hurtling towards her, sword raised. The smooth arc of its downward swing was the last thing she saw.

Noritoshi stood still for a moment, waiting. Mayako’s notes had not mentioned a partner, but one never knew. When he was satisfied that he was alone he pulled out some paper and carefully cleaned his blade. He studied his opponent for a moment, unsurprised by her face. “You were clever – but I don’t need to see you to know where you are,” he said. Then he bowed to her corpse. “A Unicorn once told me that the Lords of Death are just. I cannot say how much I hope he is correct.”

He walked back into the house and blew out the lantern. Drawing an origami peony out, he laid it on the shrine. He left the house the way he came in and headed for the main road out of the village, walking swiftly and steadily. He had far to travel tonight, and the dark was coming on.