She felt a chill at Sogamori’s ominous words, “for now.” Kiyosi smiled reassuringly at her. Tomorrow, she thought, he would come, and they would talk as they always had.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Early in the spring of Jebu’s twenty-third year, he and Moko were camped near the Rasho Mon gate of Heian Kyo with a group of samurai disguised as silk merchants. They had been commissioned by the surviving Muratomo leaders to attempt the rescue from the Rokuhara of Muratomo no Yukio, who, it was rumoured, was in grave danger of being murdered by the suspicious Sogamori.

“The boy is a constant reproach to Sogamori,” said Shenzo Saburo, the leader of Jebu’s band. “He reminds Sogamori that the Takashi murdered his father and grandfather and his older brothers. The tyrant will not rest easy till he has killed off all the generations of Muratomo.”

None of the samurai, it turned out, had ever been in Heian Kyo except for Jebu and Moko, and none of them had seen the Rokuhara. Holding a council, the samurai agreed that Jebu would go into the city first, a scout.

“Dress as a Buddhist warrior monk, a sohei, Jebu,” said Shenzo Saburo. “Go into the city and enquire about Lord Yukio. Observe the Rokuhara and report back to me how strongly guarded it is and how we might get Lord Yukio out. And shave your head, Jebu. It’s your red hair that makes you conspicuous. There are plenty of tall monks and peasants in the world.”

As Moko shaved his head, Jebu drew his tally scroll out of an inside pocket in his robe. “I have collected ninety-nine swords. Only one to go.”

“Shiké, this sword collecting of yours is madness.”

“Yes, it is foolish. But in an impulsive moment I made a vow. When I collect one more sword I can stop.”

After several hours of wandering the broad avenues and smaller side streets of Heian Kyo with his naginata over his shoulder, Jebu was frustrated. He found it difficult to approach people on the streets and in the wine shops, and the people he did speak to were terrified of talking to a stranger. He had only to mention the name “Muratomo” and the conversation would abruptly be broken off. The red-robed young men who patrolled the streets for Sogamori had terrorized the whole city. Several times Jebu encountered groups of them, and like the other citizens of Heian Kyo he prudently crossed over to the other side of the street.

No one would tell Jebu anything useful about Lord Yukio’s condition, his whereabouts in the Rokuhara, how well he was guarded, or the strength of the Takashi samurai. But the Takashi were so unpopular that his guarded questions aroused no hostility, only warnings that he was broaching matters better left alone. Jebu decided that he would go and look at the Takashi stronghold for himself and report back on its apparent defences. That would give him something to show for his journey into the city.

Then it appeared that his one-man expedition might produce another result. At the darkest hour of the night, Jebu, wandering westward towards the Kamo River to get to the Rokuhara, heard the music of a flute. Someone was playing an air of the eastern provinces. There was something almost magical in the pure, sweet sound carrying on the still night air. Jebu smiled appreciatively.

He stepped on to the bridge called Gojo, over the Kamo River. This was the very bridge on which he had first crossed into Heian Kyo with Taniko. In the moonless dark he could faintly make out the three towers of the Rokuhara on the far side of the bridge.

Then he saw the flute player strolling towards him from the other end of the bridge. It was a man dressed in a green and yellow hunting costume, with his long sword hanging from his belt. He was small and slender and looked very young. His long black hair hung unbound below his shoulders. He had no samurai topknot, but he wore a samurai sword. He must be very young, indeed. Strange that such a boy should be out so late.

To fight and perhaps kill this flute-playing lad would be a shameful way to collect his last sword. But an armed man in Heian Kyo must be on the Takashi side. Perhaps this was one of Sogamori’s young bullies, off duty and out of his red robe. If so, it was time he was taught some humility.

Swinging his naginata down from his shoulder, Jebu fell into, an at the-ready stance, barring the young man’s path across the bridge. “You play very well.”

“Thank you, sohei,” said the boy politely, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly as his glance fell on the long pole arm in Jebu’s hands. “Can I be of service to you?”

“I want your sword. Give it to me and I’ll let you pass.”

Calmly the young man sheathed his flute, drew a fan from his sash and snapped it open. It was white, with a red disk painted on it. What on earth did he intend to do with that? He was a good-looking boy, Jebu saw, though the eyes under his high forehead were larger than normal, which gave him a somewhat feminine prettiness. When he smiled, he displayed slightly protruding teeth.

“My sword is my most valuable possession, sohei. I find it rather an insult for you to suggest that I give it up without a fight.”

“Do not force me to attack you, young man. Do you intend to defend yourself with that fan?”

“If you are a well-trained sohei, you must be acquainted with the art of the war fan. I’ll use this until I see the need for a more puissant weapon. It is always better to use too little force than too much, don’t you think?”

Jebu laughed. “So young and such a sage?”

“I have given some thought to military matters. Are you going to stand there talking, sohei, or are you going to come at me?” The youth crouched slightly, the absurd fan held out before him.

Very well, Jebu thought. He would try to subdue the young man without hurting him. Waving his naginata from side to side, he took a few menacing steps forward. Suddenly, he swung the naginata at the boy’s feet, trying to knock him down with its long pole. At the last possible second the youth stepped quickly backwards, and the naginata’s sword blade sliced into the railing of the bridge. Jebu pulled the weapon free and stepped back, trying to draw his opponent into an attack. But what sort of attack could he make, armed with nothing but a fan? The flute player simply stood his ground, eyeing Jebu intently.

He was already fully grown when I met him five years ago, Taniko thought, even if he was only fifteen.

She managed, while being honest with Kiyosi, to be of help to her family. She told Kiyosi in a straightforward way that she wanted to do things for the Shima, and he gladly supplied her with information and sometimes with more tangible gifts to pass on. Several times he told Taniko where Chinese trading ships were going to land their goods secretly to avoid the Emperor’s tax officers. Though the Takashi held the highest government offices in the land, much of their wealth was based on tax avoidance.

It amused Kiyosi to help the fortunes of what seemed to him a smaller and poorer branch of his own family. He persuaded Sogamori to double the allowance sent annually for the maintenance of Muratomo no Hideyori in Lord Bokuden’s household. Grants of tax-free rice land descended on the Shima family unexpectedly.

Kiyosi smiled when she thanked him for his benevolence to her family. He said, “There are certain small fish that attach themselves to a shark, and when he feeds, they enjoy the morsels that fall from his mouth.”

Taniko laughed. “That is a disgusting comparison, Kiyosi-san.”

“Not at all. The small fish are said to help the shark find his way. It is my hope that your family will similarly be helpful to us.”

From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:

This has been a good year for me, but a bad year for the realm. Famine and pestilence are laying to waste both the capital and the countryside. Every day carts piled high with the bodies of those dead of disease or starvation are taken out through the Rasho Mon to be burned. People are robbed on the streets in broad daylight. Crowds of beggars surround the mansions of the wealthy. The Shima house has its regular contingent, who appear at our door every morning like a flock of sparrows. Uncle Ryuichi lets me feed them, because he feels I have brought good luck to the family. But I tell the beggars not to let it be known that I am giving them anything, or the flock will double in size, and I will be sent out into the street to join them.

The Takashi seem unable to do anything about these steadily worsening conditions, or perhaps they do not care. But they permit no criticism of themselves. They have over three hundred young men between fourteen and sixteen who cut their hair short, wear robes of Takashi red, and patrol the streets. Let someone whisper a word against the Takashi, and before he knows what is happening he is whisked off to the dungeon in the Rokuhara and beaten almost to death. More than once the bodies of men and women have been found in the Kamo River. It is said officially that they were killed by robbers. But often the last time these unfortunates were seen alive was when they were dragged into the Takashi stronghold. In past times, when the people complained, the rulers tried to improve conditions. The Takashi have found a cheaper way to stop complaints.

Although my young lord likes me to be frank with him, we do not talk much about these things. He knows about them. He often seems troubled when he talks to me, and he is silent for long moments. When we do talk of matters of state he pours out his fears for the future of the land, his unhappiness over the suffering of the people. But his father will have things as they are, and my young lord can do nothing but try to advise him. I hear that Sogamori’s rages are becoming more frequent and lasting longer. Just the day before yesterday he smashed to pieces a precious vase from China because Motofusa, the Fujiwara Regent, made a speech criticizing him in the Great Council of State.

I yield myself to my young lord because he is noble and strong and beautiful. He possesses everything that my husband has not at all and that only Jebu has in greater abundance. I yield myself because life is short and I cannot sit in lonely sorrow. I need the arms of a strong man around me. I know Amida Buddha sees, and has compassion on me. But—oh, Jebu! Where are you?

-Tenth Month, sixteenth day

YEAR OF THE APE

In the Eleventh Month Taniko discovered that, as the ladies of the Court sometimes put it, she was not alone. She was surprised that her immediate reaction was joy. She had not thought that she would ever care about having a child, after the loss of her daughter. For over two months after she was sure, she concealed her condition from Kiyosi. She was not sure whether he would be pleased or displeased when he learned.

One night he touched her bare belly with his fingertips. “I think you are attending too many banquets and drinking too much sake. You seem to be getting rounder in the middle.”

Taniko smiled, then laughed outright. Kiyosi sat smiling at her.

At last she said, “Can’t you guess why my belly is fuller?”

“Spoken like a true country wench. Yes, I suspected. I sensed something different about you. Ah, Taniko-san, I am glad. I had hoped that some day you would tell me this news.”

“You’re glad? Why? You already have many sons and daughters.” He smiled. “I have wanted to give you a special gift.”

She held out her arms to him, and they drew together.

The voluminous clothing worn by the well-born women of Heian Kyo concealed pregnancy until the very last moment. Taniko was able, as she wished, to accompany Kiyosi on short journeys, to go to banquets and other celebrations and to venture out in public by herself from time to time. The physician who attended the Takashi in war and peace, a man who had watched over Sogamori’s health for thirty years, came to examine and prescribe for Taniko and promised that he would be there when she delivered. Taniko hoped that this childbirth would not be as long and as painful as the last.

Her hope was fulfilled. She felt the first labour pains at dawn on the fourteenth day of the Fifth Month in the Year of the Rooster. By midmorning the Takashi physician and a midwife under his direction were with her in the Shima lying-in room. Early in the afternoon Taniko gave one last, agonized push and the midwife drew the baby out of her body.

“He will be called Atsue,” Taniko said when the physician held the baby up for her to see.

Kiyosi came to see her and the baby at sunset. Surprisingly, his father was with him. Through the blinds of the lying-in room Taniko could hear the clatter of Sogamori’s mounted samurai attendants. Ryuichi was beside himself with delight and apprehension. Sogamori’s presence filled the house as if Mount Hiei itself had come down to the city and was walking among them.

“There cannot be enough of us,” he declared. “The boy Atsue is Takashi on both his mother’s and his father’s side. He will learn the arts of war, but he will also learn poetry, musicianship, calligraphy, and the dance. He will be able to appear before the Emperor without concern.” He looked sternly at Taniko. “You will see to it. For now he will remain with you. No expense will be spared for his education.”

Taniko looked at Kiyosi who stood beside his father. In Sogamori’s presence the younger man seemed diminished, a youth without a mind of his own. Taniko saw that Kiyosi might well be the wiser of the two, as many people said, but it was the strength and will of Sogamori that made the Takashi all-powerful.

She felt a chill at Sogamori’s ominous words, “for now.” Kiyosi smiled reassuringly at her. Tomorrow, she thought, he would come, and they would talk as they always had.

Taniko’s hand felt as if she had put it close to a fire. A warmth spread through her arm to her entire body. It was a sensation she had felt many times on looking at Kiyosi, but never had it burned like this. She sighed with the pleasure of it.

“Have you nothing to say now?” he whispered.

“Words are not the only language.” She put her hand on top of his.

“I only came close to you. If that silences you, you are easily silenced.”

“It has been very long since I was silenced so, Kiyosi-san,” she said, letting her head fall against his chest.

Delicately his hands found their way into her robes. With the sure touch of a very experienced man his fingers penetrated the many layers of dresses and skirts she wore and found the recesses of her hungry body. She melted with joy at the sensation, and reached up to stroke his cheek again and again with an almost frantic insistence.

They undressed each other, not stripping away all their garments, but peeling away the layers of silk just enough to reveal each to the other, like a partially unwrapped gift. With a pang of regret Taniko thought fleetingly of Jebu, only to say to herself, as the samurai often said, that the past was the past and the present was the present, and this shining lord was someone she desperately needed and could not deny herself.

His face shadowed in the lamplight, he looked at her intently, seriously, his nostrils flaring as he drew deep breaths. Always, before now, she had seen him fully dressed in the clothing of a courtier. Now, for the first time, she saw and felt the power in him—the solid, broad neck, the wide, square shoulders, the great, flat muscles across his chest. She stroked his arms delicately with her fingers. These were the thick forearms of a swordsman, strong as tree trunks.

This was the body of a man trained from childhood to kill. He was, and would always be, a samurai, a man whose way of life was death. To such a man, who faced death constantly, a moment like this must be very precious. Each time he was with a woman he must know that it might be the last time, and this knowledge must give the union a painful sweetness which no man but a samurai could ever know. With Kiyosi she shared that poignancy, that transience.

This beautiful man might be cut down tomorrow, like a flower in a field. Shuddering with pleasure, she gave herself to him.

For the first time, Taniko experienced what it was to spend night after night with a man she loved. Her days passed with a honey-warm delight she had never known before. It was as if she had gone hungry all her life and was only now discovering the taste of good food.

Examining her body in privacy, she found her hips and breasts growing rounder, fuller, though her waist and legs were still slender. She had the figure of a woman now, no longer the body of a girl. Her mirror told her that her cheeks were a healthy pink, which, of course, she had to hide with white powder when she dressed. Her eyes sparkled and her hair was thick and glossy. How far she had come from the wraithlike creature invoking Amida Buddha in the corner of her chamber! How far Kiyosi had taken her! She had never been more beautiful.

They began to travel together. Kiyosi took her for carriage rides through the city and on visits to nearby shrines. During the autumn they went several times to one of the Takashi country estates, where they spent the day riding and hunting with falcons. They sailed the length of the Inland Sea from the port of Hyogo, which the Takashi virtually owned, to Shimonoseki Strait, opening into the great western sea.

Since she was no longer connected with the Court, and since their relationship had no official status, she was unable to accompany him to any of the great state banquets and festivals he frequently attended. But she was always with him at smaller, intimate dinners and parties he and his close friends gave for one another. Kiyosi was the centre of a circle of young nobles and courtiers who wrote poetry, patronized sculptors and painters, talked and drank and played the flute and the koto and the lute until dawn and went on long rollicking visits to one another’s country houses.

Taniko found the young Takashi men to be brilliant, evanescent creatures. A few years ago these young men would have been going to war instead of reciting poetry or riding after their falcons. One day war might strike Heian Kyo again, and some of these young men might fall. In their poems, the samurai often compared themselves to cherry blossoms, beautiful but blown away by the first strong wind. Taniko thought the comparison apt.

She knew that Kiyosi had a principal wife and two secondary wives, as well as sons and daughters. In matters involving affairs of state, this was the family to which Kiyosi was responsible. She did not resent them, and she hoped they did not resent her. They had possessed Kiyosi long before she knew him, and they would have him back long after she lost him. Somehow or other she would lose him, of that she was sure. All joy, she had learned, lasts only for a moment. Cherry blossoms. She wrote a poem for Kiyosi.

Many are the nights
We sleep in each other’s arms.
In years to come
We will think these nights all too few.

Kiyosi didn’t like it. It was depressing, he told her, to dwell on the instability of life. Such matters should be left to monks. As for himself, he intended to live for ever.

We have slept together
And your long black hair is tangled in the dawn.
We will remain together
Till your black hair turns white.

Sogamori, Kiyosi’s awesome father, approved of her. They had met several times at Takashi banquets, and the stout chancellor had smiled benignly and spoken pleasantly to her.

Aunt Chogao beamed and little Munetaki peeped, awestruck, as the Takashi hero strode through the Shima galleries. Uncle Ryuichi was beside himself with delight and sent glowing reports to Lord Bokuden in Kamakura about the way Taniko had charmed herself into the highest circles of the Takashi. Bokuden wrote letters back praising Taniko and mentioning in passing that Muratomo no Hideyori was growing up to be a dutiful subject of the Emperor and was no danger to the social order.

He was already fully grown when I met him five years ago, Taniko thought, even if he was only fifteen.

She managed, while being honest with Kiyosi, to be of help to her family. She told Kiyosi in a straightforward way that she wanted to do things for the Shima, and he gladly supplied her with information and sometimes with more tangible gifts to pass on. Several times he told Taniko where Chinese trading ships were going to land their goods secretly to avoid the Emperor’s tax officers. Though the Takashi held the highest government offices in the land, much of their wealth was based on tax avoidance.

Jebu continued his daily practice of contemplating the Jewel of Life and Death. Carefully secluding himself so that his samurai companions would not see and covet the Jewel, he would lose himself in the maze traced on the transparent sphere’s surface.

Moko felt that the Jewel must be magic, and he feared its power over his master. Jebu had told Moko the whole story of Jamuga, Taitaro, Arghun and the shintai. The Jewel was beautiful, Moko thought, but why did the shiké spend so much time staring at it?

Chapter Twenty-Two

From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:

Sogamori has commanded that the young Muratomo no Yukio be moved from the Buddhist monastery on Mount Hiei to the Takashi palace, the Rokuhara. Sogamori claims he has heard of threats on the young man’s life, but everyone agrees that the main threat to the Muratomo heir is Sogamori himself. Akimi, it is said, no longer has much influence on Sogamori, who has fallen foolishly in love with a sixteen-year-old white rhythm dancer from Kaga province named Hotoke.

I wonder what Father would do if Sogamori ordered him to execute Hideyori.

-Seventh Month, eleventh day

YEAR OF THE APE

Kiyosi’s visits had become the high points of Taniko’s life. He now came in the evening and brought his lute with him, and while he played, they sang together. First, though, they would spend an hour or two discussing the gossip of the day. Kiyosi found that nothing concerning the intrigues at the Court was beyond Taniko’s comprehension, and he had even fallen into the habit of asking her opinion on difficult affairs of state in which he was involved.

“Father is beside himself with glee,” he said one evening. “He says he has finally matched the accomplishment of the greatest Fujiwara.”

“How so?”

“He has arranged for my sister, Kenreimon, to marry the Imperial Prince Takakura. And he intends to have Takakura succeed to the throne when Emperor Rokujo retires.”

The year before in the Year of the Sheep, Emperor Nijo, whose Empress, Sadako, Taniko had served as a lady-in-waiting, had died after a short illness. Sogamori, the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and the Regent, Fujiwara no Motofusa, had agreed that the new Son of Heaven should be Nijo’s son, Rokujo, who was now only four years old. Next in succession were two sons of Go-Shirakawa, Mochihito and Takakura.

Taniko pointed this out. “Prince Mochihito is next in line for the throne after Emperor Rokujo.”

“He will be persuaded to step aside.” Kiyosi looked away uneasily. For his visits, Taniko sent the servants away and put aside the screen of state. They had long since been conversing face-to-face. The Shima family had no fear of scandal. Indeed, Ryuichi was frankly hoping for something scandalous to occur.

“Kiyosi-san, this is a mistake. Your father is now tampering with the Imperial succession. His appetite is boundless. He is like the frog in the peasant tale who puffs himself up until he bursts. As you know, I hear things from people who would never talk to you or to a member of your family. People are afraid of the Takashi, and some are growing to hate them. What will they think when they learn that Sogamori intends to put a Takashi on the Imperial throne?”

“Just to marry the Emperor, not to be Emperor—”

“That wouldn’t fool the stupidest street sweeper, and it doesn’t fool me. Obviously Takakura and your sister will have a child, quite possibly a son. That child will be Sogamori’s grandson. And as soon as that happens Takakura will conveniently abdicate and the Emperor will be a Takashi. Sogamori’s ambition is as plain as Mount Hiei. I tell you, he overreaches himself.”

“What Father intends is not unheard of,” said Kiyosi. “The Fujiwara married their daughters to the Imperial heirs many times. The Imperial house today is as much descended from the Fujiwara as it is from Emperor Jimmu. And besides, we Takashi have Imperial blood. We are all descended from Emperor Kammu.”

“It’s not the same,” said Taniko. “The Fujiwara were as close to the throne as a river to its banks when they intermarried with the Imperial house. Emperor Kammu lived a long time ago, and since then the Takashi have been provincial landowners, traders and samurai. People see you as rustic upstarts. And what’s more, the Fujiwara themselves are among those you should be concerned about. They are envious of the power of the Takashi. Your worst enemy at Court is the Regent, Fujiwara no Motofusa.”

“Motofusa is no danger to us.”

“The Fujiwara still have enormous influence in the country.”

“Influence. What difference does that make? You speak of people fearing and hating the Takashi. Why should we be concerned? The day of the Fujiwara, the day of the nobility, is over. They had authority, and we respected and obeyed them. They despised us, the samurai, because we did the fighting, we shed the blood. The nobles of Heian Kyo were above all that. When Go-Shirakawa’s brother tried to overthrow him, and later, during Domei’s insurrection, we discovered that it was our arrows and our swords that decided events. It is from the sword that authority springs. And now that the Muratomo have been crushed, every sword in the land does the bidding of the Takashi. My father holds the country in the palm of his hand.”

Taniko shook her head. “You are talking like your father now. I think you know better. You cannot rule this land with swords alone. If the nobles, the priests, the landowners great and small, the peasants and the people in the streets all turn against the Takashi, they can bring you down. The swords that serve you today will turn against you, if your enemies seem to have right on their side.”

Kiyosi said nothing for a moment. Then he spoke in a wondering voice. “You offend me.”

Taniko bowed her head. “I have overstepped myself with the august Minister of the Interior.”

“No one says such things to me any more.”

“I ask your pardon.”

“You don’t understand. I need someone to remind me that the world still looks on the Takashi as uncouth butchers. We deceive ourselves. Only you, Taniko-san, of all the people I know, speak to me of things as they really are.” He did something he had never done before in all the times he had visited her. He moved across the floor until he was sitting beside her. He took her hand.

Taniko’s hand felt as if she had put it close to a fire. A warmth spread through her arm to her entire body. It was a sensation she had felt many times on looking at Kiyosi, but never had it burned like this. She sighed with the pleasure of it.

“Have you nothing to say now?” he whispered.

“Words are not the only language.” She put her hand on top of his.

“I only came close to you. If that silences you, you are easily silenced.”

“It has been very long since I was silenced so, Kiyosi-san,” she said, letting her head fall against his chest.

Delicately his hands found their way into her robes. With the sure touch of a very experienced man his fingers penetrated the many layers of dresses and skirts she wore and found the recesses of her hungry body. She melted with joy at the sensation, and reached up to stroke his cheek again and again with an almost frantic insistence.

Suddenly he stood up, gave a great cry of anguish and rushed to the edge of the sea. There he threw himself on the stony ground and wept. A dark cloud covered his mind. At first he felt no more than a blackness and numbness within, as if a naginata blade had cloven his chest. Gradually, images rose within him: Taniko, the baby he had never seen, Horigawa.

If only she had listened to him. They could have run away together. Waves of sadness swept through him like the surf below in Hakata Bay. Two lives were in bondage to sorrow and the third snuffed out because Taniko refused to give up her status, to forget this marriage that had been made for her by fools, and run away with him. Their daughter was dead. How Taniko must have suffered. Jebu wept for the drowned child and for Taniko’s agony.

He would go and kill Horigawa. He had never hated anyone this way before, not even Arghun. His enmity towards Arghun was a matter of principle; it was only right to hate the man who had killed his father and who wanted to kill him. But even though he had fought with Arghun, he felt he hardly knew the man, and from what little he did know, he felt a degree of respect for the Mongol.

With Horigawa, it was different. Horigawa had used and abused Taniko’s body. He had killed their baby. The thought of Horigawa made his stomach churn and his fingers clench, aching to be wrapped around the man’s scrawny neck. He hated the cruelty, the waste, the stupidity of Horigawa’s act. It was Horigawa, too, who had egged on the Takashi and thereby set the great samurai families at each other’s throats. Because of Horigawa thousands of good men were dead and much of the land lay in ruins. If Horigawa were to die, how many lives might be changed for the better?

If only he had killed him when he had the chance at Daidoji. He had been a fool to let him live. Some of the hatred he felt for Horigawa was directed at himself as well. It was because of his error that Horigawa had lived to kill Jebu’s daughter.

The spasm of hatred recalled him to himself. He reached inside his robe to the secret place sewn into it, and he took out the shintai. Sitting up, he held the Jewel in both hands before his face, staring into the shifting planes of colour and light in its depths. For a moment he seemed to see the great glowing Tree of Life and some of the creatures that grew from it.

Peace spread slowly through his body. The grief was still there, a dull ache, but the hatred was gone.

Horigawa and I are one, he told himself. For me to kill him in hatred, thinking that I am ridding the world of evil, is as mad as cutting off my left hand with my right hand. Horigawa acts according to his nature and I act according to mine. If I kill him some day, it will be because it is necessary, not because I hate him and desire his death.

That, he thought with surprise, is the deepest level of insight I have achieved since Taitaro gave me the shintai.

He stood up and walked back to Moko, who was staring at him. “Shiké, what is that precious stone?”

“It is a gift to me from my fathers. Both of them.” He put his hand on Moko’s shoulder. “I’m all right now.”

“Shiké, I want to stay with you. Let me be your servant, your Bannerman, your foot soldier—anything.”

“A Zinja monk does not normally have servants. But these are not normal times. Yes, from now on you will travel with me.”

A few days later Abbot Weicho called Jebu into his chamber. “You will continue to serve the Muratomo. The Council of Abbots is convinced that there is a doom hanging over the house of Takashi. It is important to the Order that Zinja be fighting on the winning side. When the Muratomo do win, we may see the revival of the Order for which we have long hoped.”

Jebu was sent to the island of Shikoku to help a band of samurai besiege the castle of an oryoshi who was oppressing the countryside in the service of the Red Dragon. Jebu proposed to assassinate the oryoshi and was contemptuously told that it was impossible. The castle was so impregnable that a mouse could not get into it, and the oryoshi was guarded in shifts by samurai who even stood over his bed and watched him while he slept.

“He does not even send his guards away when he takes a woman,” the local Muratomo leader said.

“Assassination is a Zinja speciality,” said Jebu. “Leave this to me.”Jebu infiltrated the castle by way of a sewer outlet into the moat around it. He hid in the castle privy for a day and a night, using Zinja meditative techniques to remain motionless and silent. When his intended victim came to relieve himself, Jebu ran his sword into his bowels and escaped by the same route he had entered. Leaderless, the castle fell to the Muratomo samurai, who looked on Jebu with superstitious horror. Moko helped him to wash his clothing and equipment, and would not let him out of the bath, which he constantly replenished with fresh, steaming water, for an entire day.

Jebu fought along with one band of samurai, then another, staying at one castle for a night, at another for a week, at a few for months. He besieged and was besieged, ambushed enemies in the forest and fought pitched battles in the streets of cities and villages. It was a way of life he had grown used to after Domei’s insurrection, and one to which Moko quickly adapted.

But in spite of the Council of Abbots’ hopes, the Muratomo leaders who held out against the Takashi were, one by one, captured or killed. The insurrection came to seem more like the scattered depredations of outlaw bands than an organized rebellion. The two surviving sons of Domei remained under guard in the hands of the Takashi. The elder, Hideyori, was still under the watchful eye of Taniko’s father, Lord Shima Bokuden. His half-brother, Yukio, remained in Sogamori’s custody in the Rokuhara, the Takashi stronghold in the capital. Both publicly disavowed any warfare conducted in their family’s behalf, declaring it to be the work of bandits. They repeatedly swore their loyalty to the Emperor and to Sogamori.

Jebu’s collection of swords grew month by month. After a battle, with Moko’s help, he would find the swords of any samurai he killed, and Moko would carry them to the nearest Zinja monastery. Eventually the swords would make their way to the Teak Blossom Temple. Months later a message would arrive from Nyosan by some circuitous route, telling Jebu that the swords had arrived, and giving him the current tally.

Jebu continued his daily practice of contemplating the Jewel of Life and Death. Carefully secluding himself so that his samurai companions would not see and covet the Jewel, he would lose himself in the maze traced on the transparent sphere’s surface.

Moko felt that the Jewel must be magic, and he feared its power over his master. Jebu had told Moko the whole story of Jamuga, Taitaro, Arghun and the shintai. The Jewel was beautiful, Moko thought, but why did the shiké spend so much time staring at it?