Shadowed Hearts

 

by Nancy Sauer

Edited by Fred Wan

        

 

 

The Imperial Court was not a good place for a private conversation. There were always people there; people standing and conversing with others, or moving from one conversation to another, or looking to see where the next interesting conversation would develop. Nevertheless, if one was patient and determined it was possible to work a few private words in with someone.

“You are angry with me,” Kakita Hideshi said softly.

“I am not angry with you,” Asahina Beniha said. She was not angry with him. Anger was somewhat foreign to her nature – her family regarded it with suspicion, remembering their ancestor’s repentance. In her childhood Beniha had been taught the sutras intended to purge anger from the heart and replace it with clear-minded determination for correct action, and since the incident at Kibe Mura she had chanted them morning and evening. It was not anger that kept her from inviting him into her rooms, or made her avoid looking at his eyes.

“And yet you do not speak to me,” Hideshi said.

Beniha did not answer him. There was nothing that she could say to him, and in any case the fullest part of her attention was fixed on the swirl of people around her. Bayushi Hisoka was standing near the room’s dais, looking Imperial. Shosuro Mizuno was nearby, speaking with Bayushi Kurumi. Beniha looked over the young woman’s tastefully arranged kimono and reflected that apparently Imperial Court was important enough to warrant clothing. In a far corner Bayushi Komiya was having a smiling conversation with a pair of Mantis samurai she didn’t recognize, and nearer to hand Bayushi Kindebu was speaking with Ikoma Ryudo. Beniha pondered this. Kindebu was either someone’s overly-indulged nephew or a stalking horse deliberately introduced by the Scorpion Clan to lull the rest of the court into complacency. In either case dealing with anyone that foolish brought danger, but he offered opportunities as well. Beniha spent a few heartbeats in calculation and then she was in motion, walking with a casual grace that hid her motives.

“I have heard that the fighting in the south is flaring back up again,” Kindebu said loudly.

“Indeed,” Ryudo said. “The Destroyers continue to fight, though we still do not know what they are fighting for. The pattern of their advances is not that of a force intending to claim territory.”

“And yet they are, effectively, claiming the Empress’s land.” Kindebu smiled thinly. “One might wonder what the Lion armies are worth, if they can do nothing but retreat before the Daughter of Heaven’s enemies.”

Ryudo let the comment hang in the air for a moment before answering. “Bayushi-san, one might think that you meant to offer some insult to the Lion Clan.”

“There need be no insult taken from humor, even bad humor,” Beniha said, inserting herself into the conversation. She smiled widely at the two men. “Though boredom is always allowed.”

Ryudo bowed to her. “I do not consider the worth of my clan to be a subject of humor, Asahina-sama.”

“I can certainly sympathize with that,” Beniha said, “and no pupil of mine would make such an error in court. But youth must have its sauce, as they say.”

“According to a scholar I once met plum sauce is appropriate,” Ryudo said, “though I have not made the experiment myself.”

“Asahina-sama, Ikoma-san and I were having a serious discussion,” Kindebu said, still talking loudly. “One wonders if you can tell what humor really is.”

“Oh, that is simple,” Beniha said. She did not need to raise her voice; the air kami were her friends and they spread the sound of the conversation to anyone in the room who had the slightest interest in it. “Serious would be if I asked after your Champion’s health and offered him and his family my best wishes. Humor would be if I asked if he knew his clan was attacking the Crane, in defiance of the Empress’s express command for peace among her vassals.”

Kindebu looked like he’d been jabbed with a pin. “You refer to the incident at Daikon Mura,” he said.

“I do,” Beniha said. “Lady Domotai has shown great restraint at this outrage, but restraint has limits. The Scorpion Clan has utterly refused to explain the presence of their patrol in the village.”

“I have not heard that the Crane have explained the presence of one of their patrols, either,” Kindebu said.

“Bayushi-san,” Beniha said, “it is a Crane holding.”

“Indeed, it was declared so in the time of Hantei Genji, when the first Imperial maps were drawn up,” Ryudo said. He was looking off into the middle distance, and speaking as if reading aloud. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Hantei XXII it was taken by the Lion in glorious combat. In the first year of the reign of Hantei XXIII it was returned to the Crane at the Emperor’s request.” He looked back at Kindebu.

The Scorpion looked about to reply, and then paused at something he saw. Beniha glanced over her shoulder and saw with pleasure that Bayushi Hisoka was approaching. No matter what the Chancellor said, things would become very interesting.

“Excuse me, samurai-san, but did I hear something about a conflict between clans?” Hisoka smiled benignly at the group.

“Asahina-sama has been claiming that the Scorpion are violating the Crane border. I have never heard of such nonsense,” Kindebu said.

“I believe that remark calls for plum sauce,” Ryudo said.

“Bayushi-sama, you have heard correctly,” Beniha said. She was certain that Hisoka had already received a full accounting of the incident, but she was willing to pretend otherwise. “There was a fight between a Crane and a Scorpion patrol at the Crane village of Daikon Mura. We believe that samurai on both sides died, but since Lady Domotai’s requests for an explanation have gone unanswered I cannot say for sure.”

“This is a very serious matter, Asahina-san,” Hisoka said. “I am disappointed that I was not notified of this breach of the Empress’s command.”

“Please accept my apologies,” Beniha said. She bowed deeply to Hisoka. “I beg you to understand that my failure sprang from a desire not to burden you with trivialities.”

“I–” Kindebu began, and was silenced by a curt gesture from Hisoka.

The Chancellor turned back to Beniha. “Your apologies are accepted,” he said. “In former times it would indeed have been a minor thing, but the Empress’s command has changed that. I expect that Paneki’s apparent failure to answer Domotai springs from the current difficulties in travel – I will inquire with the Scorpion delegates here in court and see what can be discovered.”

“Thank you, Chancellor,” Beniha said, bowing again. “I am certain that with your aid this matter will be swiftly resolved, to the great glory of the Daughter of Heaven.”

“Indeed,” Hisoka said. “Kindebu-san, I would like to have a few words with you, privately.” They moved off through the crowd, Hisoka smiling to all and Kindebu looking worried.

Beniha spent a few further minutes in conversation with Ryudo and then departed, seeking the next person she had business with. Hideshi trailed along behind her, silent, patient.

 

 

The private sections of the Imperial Gardens were one of the few places Beniha could be seen without her yojimbo without raising questions. His silence had been mutinous when she ordered him to say behind, but he had obeyed.

Beniha chose a bench at random and sat down. She had gotten to know Kakita Hideshi very well in the months since he was assigned to her – too well, some might say, but Beniha tended to dismiss such talk as simple envy. She had seen his eyes intent with concentration or bright with passion or drowsy with sleep, eyes of deep blue with a hint of gray, like the summer sky at twilight. 

At Kibe Mura, he had looked at her with a monster’s eyes.

She had been too stunned at the time to do anything but follow his orders to get on the horse. During the long nightmare ride that followed she had consoled herself with the knowledge that soon they would reach one of the checkpoints and the soldiers there would see him and kill him. But that didn’t happen.

They had ridden up to the sentries on the road, Hideshi shouting out his name and hers. The gunso in charge had listened gravely to Hideshi’s story, and then he had sent half of his force to the village to seek signs of more undead lurking about. The other half he assigned to the care and comfort of the Asahina daimyo. A cup of tea brewed with the finest leaf in the guard house, a hot bath, a new pair of thick socks and some sturdy sandals to replace the ones she had left behind. At any other time Beniha would have enjoyed these signs of her importance, but then she had only been stunned that no one else had seen what she had seen. 

What was going on? How could everyone else look him in the eyes and not see it?

“Excuse me, Asahina-san. May I have a word with you?”

Beniha looked up, startled. Bayushi Hisoka stood next to the bench, his bodyguard standing a respectful distance away. “Of course, Chancellor,” she said.  She stood up and bowed deeply to him. “Please pardon me, I was meditating on the beauty of the garden.”

“No apologies are needed. The Empire will be a dire place when even the Crane have no time for beauty.” Hisoka sat down and gestured for Beniha to join him. “I have come to speak with you about Scorpion patrols.”

“I am eager to hear what you have learned,” Beniha said.

“It is the stuff of marvels,” Hisoka said. “The group that encountered the Crane patrol had been searching for a Scorpion patrol who had disappeared several weeks previously. They had just discovered some sign of the missing patrol when the Cranes arrived, and things went… badly.”

“And what was the first Scorpion patrol doing in Crane lands?” Beniha asked.

“No one knows. Their last known location was outside a small village in the Scorpion lands.”

“That is an incredible story, Bayushi-sama.”

“One you do not fully believe. No, no, do not apologize. We are both courtiers, we both know the moves of the great game. But I promise you that this is the simple truth of the matter.”

“Bayushi-sama, it does not explain why the second group crossed the border without permission.”

“Desperation,” Hisoka said. “The plague is running wild in the Scorpion provinces, as bad or worse as it is in the Crane lands, and it is important to the Empire that it be contained.” He paused a moment and studied Beniha’s face. “I know that the Asahina are not warlike, but neither are you stupid. You know how things are going for the Southern Armies now – imagine for a moment how things would go if the flow of supplies from the Lion provinces to their armies was disrupted.”

“It would be catastrophic,” Beniha said.

“Exactly. One robber inside of a house is far more troublesome than three outside the gates.” Beniha blinked slightly at this, but Hisoka went on. “Our clans have no war on their borders. We must not use that as an excuse to war with each other!” He stood up. “As Chancellor, I have ordered the Scorpion to offer apologies and reparations to the Crane. I likewise order you to accept them and to let the matter drop.”

The demands went somewhat beyond a Chancellor’s normal powers, Beniha thought, but then these were not normal times. Hisoka was undoubtedly trying to help keep the Empire together while at the same time extend his own personal power. “Of course, Chancellor. The Crane Clan desires nothing more than to aid the Empire in these troubled times.” He would not be the first to find war-time power slipping away when peace came, she thought, nor would he be the last. Lasting influence took time to build.

Hisoka smiled. “Thank you. I will speak of your devotion to the Empress, though I am sure she already knows of it.”

 

 

“If you are not angry with me,” Hideshi said behind her, “why will you not talk to me?”

Beniha looked down at the small shrine in her room, drawing strength from it. The robber inside of the house, she thought. If no one but her could see the monster, then she would have to deal with it. She turned around and looked him in the eyes. And stopped.

It was Hideshi standing there. His eyes were exactly as she remembered Hideshi’s eyes, the real Hideshi’s eyes.

“I– I–,” she said, trying to think.

“Beniha – Beniha-sama – I was rude to you that night at the village. Horribly rude.” Hideshi stepped a bit nearer. “If you were to send me away and request a new yojimbo with better manners it would only be what I deserved.” He took one of her hands up in his and cradled it gently. “But I want you to know that my actions did not come from disregard of you, but from terror for your well-being. I was the last member of your escort alive, and we didn’t know what had attacked the others. I had to get you out of there as quickly as possible. Nothing else mattered. Even if you send me away now I will leave happy, because you are alive.”

She couldn’t have imagined it, Beniha thought. Couldn’t she? But the gunso had seen nothing. The monster had been so real… but then, Hideshi had just been in a fight and he had been still dripping blood at the time. Every Asahina knew that violence and bloodshed did things to the spirit; that was why there were purification rites preformed after a battle. The sight of the undead swarming over and killing the living had upset her greatly. Could her emotions have made her see things that weren’t there?

“Hideshi-kun,” she said, and when he looked up her gaze searched his eyes. Blue like the summer sky at twilight, without a hint of darkness. “I am not angry with you. It was just a very upsetting night, and I needed time to regain my peace of spirit. That is all.”

He took her into a tight hug. “Whatever you need from me you shall have,” he whispered. “I will fight for your life, your spirit. I will do anything for you.”

Beniha was silent for awhile, feeling the tension and fear drain out of her. Then she looked up at him with a smile. “Hideshi-kun, would you like a game of go?”