L5r - scroll 03 - The Crane (25 page)

The bodies they held were less than ten days old and seemed lashed against the torii arch. The cold had preserved them despite the animals that picked away flesh and sinew. The samurai had been hamstrung. Their feet dangled beneath the thick hemp that tied them to the stakes. Their chests had been torn by several sharp wounds, which sagged open beneath the stumps of rotting necks. Above, their heads leered down with lidless eyes.

The men marching on the road made no sound other than the hiss of breath, trying not to stare up at the bodies splayed before them.

Only Toku said anything at all. "Shinsei..." he whispered. "Poor bastards."

Around the necks of each of the two men hung the small jade tablets of the Emerald Magistrates. Even in troubled times, the peasants feared to pillage the tablets, lest they draw the emperor's wrath.

Toshimoko rode his skittish pony near the bodies and used a tanto to cut the tablets free. They fell to the ground, sinking into the thin crust of snow.

Wayu lifted his arm to point at the village. "Master, there's someone coming."

Toshimoko looked up and saw four heimin standing in the door of one of the huts. In their hands, they held hoes and other farm implements—tools better saved for the spring thaw.

"Turn back." One of them shouted with a thick Unicorn drawl. "You aren't wanted here."

"There's plague," another added, thumping his scythe on the ground. He pointed at a small boil beginning on one of his hands, and then to the black ribbons that adorned one of the larger huts at the edge of the village.

Toshimoko glanced at his men.

Their eyes shifted nervously from the village to the staked bodies.

"No plague," Toshimoko shouted. "Only dead magistrates."

"No samurai in this village," a heimin yelled arrogantly. "No more. Go home."

"Who killed these men?" It was a command, barked loudly. The heimin instinctively ducked behind their crude weapons. When they gave no response, Toshimoko shouted again, tugging his horse's reins and riding beneath the high torii arch. "Who killed the servants of the emperor?" He signaled Wayu to prepare for a fight. Keeping one hand on his sword, Toshimoko urged his pony toward the heimin.

"I did." It was a quiet assertion, resigned and calm.

Toshimoko looked to his left, at one of the smaller huts. In the doorway stood a man in the tattered hakima of a samurai. His hair was shaved except for a small topknot perched easily on his head. His face was browned by weather and age, his swords hung loosely in their battered saya. On his left cheek, a boil had begun, leaking its pus down the man's jawbone.

Toshimoko cleared his throat. "These men were the emperor's hand in this region."

"They were murderers, rapists, and brigands. They brought the plague into this village, and they murdered the people who lived here." The man seemed well educated, his clear syllables rolling from a swollen tongue.

"Your name?"

"I am Daidoji Kensen. You are Sensei Toshimoko-sama. Yes, I know who you are. I was wondering how long it would take you to bring your brigand band to our village."

Surprised, Toshimoko swung down from his horse. "What testimony did you have against those men?"

"My own," he managed in a faintly strained voice. "And that of the heimin." Gesturing toward the clump of peasants holding their farm tools in white-knuckled hands, the samurai nodded. "You're the emperor's hand now."

"I am." Toshimoko walked toward the Daidoji, stepping over the drifts of snow that lay in the road. When he was three strides away, the sensei stopped. Caution flared in his old veins. His eyes narrowed.

"Then take this." Drawing a token of jade from his gi, he pulled the string over his neck and threw it at Toshimoko's feet. "Five years ago, I was posted here by Doji Satsume, with those men, to preserve the emperor's law upon this land." But I will no longer serve an emperor who will not heal his people."

Behind Toshimoko, several of the men growled, sensing the disrespect in Kensen's words.

The sensei lifted his hand, quieting his men. Glancing around at the village, he estimated that two hundred men and women could live here. If even a fourth of them were men in fighting condition, with scythes and pitchforks, Toshimoko's band could be overcome. Heimin, the sensei thought. It was ironic to come through all this only to be attacked by a plague-ridden Daidoji and rotten dogs. "Speak your mind, Kensen."

"I don't have to. This village and thousands like it speak for me. The empire is dying, and the emperor has no will— no strength—to heal its wounds. Look around you, Toshi-moko-sama. Tell me. What has the emperor, with all his politics and power struggles, done for us?"

"You have no right to question the emperor!" Though he remained at the arch, Wayu's hand instinctively reached for his sword.

The Daidoji did not flinch, nor even look at Wayu. He only stared into Toshimoko's blue eyes with solid brown ones. "Kill me, Emerald Champion. Kill us all, for what we have become. But do not kill us because you believe it to be your duty. Strike because it is time to be rid of the plague upon this land. The wound that Satsume was given at Otosan Uchi has spread, leaving boils in its path. He did not even die honorably, but wasted away in his tent like the pitiful champion he was. And when he died, the Emerald Magistrates died with him. We are the corruption from Satsume's wound, Toshimoko-sama. We are the foulness that has spilled from his failures."

Shuffling on one putrid foot, the Daidoji stepped closer.

He reeked of rotting flesh. "Kill me, Sensei of the Crane, because it is your duty. Follow the commands of an emperor who is dying of the same disease that slaughters his empire. There is no honor anymore."

"Kneel," Toshimoko said slowly, "and I will give you the death you deserve. Honorable seppuku, to pay the Fortunes for your dishonorable words." He stepped closer to the Daidoji, moving within a sword's length, unafraid.

The Daidoji shook his head. "I will die fighting, old man, not on my knees. I will die knowing that I have served my duty by killing those who believed the emperor was more important than the empire." Drawing his sword in one stroke, the samurai called, "How will you die, Champion?"

Instinctively, Toshimoko drew and struck. His blade passed effortlessly through the samurai's body. Toshimoko looked back over his shoulder as he completed the stroke. His cloak whirled slowly past the falling Daidoji.

The magistrate had not even bothered to swing his blade.

"Well done, Sensei!" His men cheered, raising their fists in salute.

From the doorway, a comely young peasant maiden rushed, kneeling beside the fallen Daidoji. Tears fell from her expressive eyes. Toshimoko took a step back as she clasped the man's tanto. She buried it to the hilt in her own throat. She fell beside him. Small plague boils on her hands wept angry fluid across her swollen belly. Blood gushed from the wound in her throat.

Had it been the Daidoji's child, ill-gotten on the woman? Toshimoko wondered. And how had the heimin girl learned to claim an honorable death—a samurai's death? A peasant willing to die like a samurai....

Toshimoko cleaned his blade on the Daidoji's weathered gi and sheathed it. There was more to this corruption than he could see with his eyes. "Take no food from this village," he ordered his men, commanding them to move on. "We want nothing of this to carry with us."

The men grumbled. It meant another three-day march with little provision. Still, none of the men wished to risk plague simply to ease their rumbling bellies. They would follow his command.

Toshimoko mounted his pony and rode away. He looked back at the heimin who clustered about the body of the fallen magistrate.

If only it were so easy to leave the Daidoji's words behind.

blood and shadow

c
hains.

Cold stone wall pressed angry wounds into his spine. Iron manacles tore the flesh of his wrists. Chains bound him, stretching from taut arms up toward a ceiling hidden by darkness. His silk gi and vest had been taken from him, leaving him half naked against the chill of mortar and rock.

Hoturi's eyes stung with salt. Blood trailed down his wrists. For how long had he been confined—two days? Ten? Somewhere above him, the Crane must believe he had taken another of his anonymous journeys. Somewhere, far above him in wooden hallways and gently arched rooms, Kachiko played her courtly games. The emperor labored, breath to breath, and the Crane battled with Lion and Crab.

Their champion was a fool, and he deserved to die in darkness and chains.

Stone grated on stone, and a faint light shone against the floor. Footsteps, soft and delicate, whispered behind flickers of torchlight. Two figures approached. Their forms were blackened by shadow, framed in halos of gold.

Aramoro. One was Bayushi Aramoro, with eyes like black chips of stone behind his veiled mask. It clung to his lower jaw, shielding his nose and lips from sight while leaving his eyes free to shine with hatred. He lifted the torch above his head and lit another that hung from a nearby wall. As it burst into slow, sparking flame, the other figure moved closer.

Her body slid gently beneath the rich silk of her kimono, weaving like flame against the pale light. In her hands she bore a heavily ornamented golden box, which shone with an inner light. Even its brightness did not match the radiance of her smile.

"Good morning, Hoturi-sama," Kachiko whispered. Her musical voice echoed through the chambers and labyrinths of Otosan Uchi's deepest heart. "How well you look, my lord. How the night's rest has suited you."

Her hair, pinned up by ivory clips, coiled like ropes of silk. Setting the box on a low, spiderweb-covered table nearby, Kachiko stepped toward him and placed her hand on his cheek.

Hoturi shuddered from the unwanted touch. Her warm hand felt violating, and yet soothing. Reflexively, he tore his face away and tried not to hear her tickling laughter.

Behind her, Aramoro lit another torch. The room slowly took shape. Spiders had owned this space for years, covering its low ceiling and thick walls in their white canopies. Chains hung from thickly mortared stones nearby, and three low tables were the only other furnishings.

Aramoro lit a third torch and placed the one from his hand in an empty iron bracket on the wall.

"How the mighty have fallen," Kachiko murmured, using one delicate red fingernail to touch the chains that bound him. "How low have you become, Hoturi, and how it suits you. The higher you fly, my lord, the farther you have to fall...."

Hoturi struggled against his chains, trying to reach her pale shoulders. "I will kill you, woman. This treachery is beneath even you. What game are you playing with me, Kachiko? What will this do for you, when you have killed me?"

"Killed you?" Her laughter pealed like cascading bells. She lifted her hand to the golden casket, her fingers outstretched in a gesture of triumph. She touched the elaborate catch, the lid, and the burnished gold. "Oh, no, my love. There will be no death for you. Nothing so simple to repay you for your brave deeds. We have something else for you." Raising her hand from the small chest, she reached toward Aramoro.

Aramoro bowed at her command. From a pocket within his gi, he drew a balsa wood box and gave it to his mistress.

The box was thin, but wide, and as Kachiko opened it, a sweet scent of decay struck Hoturi's nostrils. Something inside had been crushed to a powder and wrapped in delicate leaves, left to rot over time.

Kachiko smiled. "My brother makes such wonderful gifts. This was for your father, Hoturi, but the old man died too soon to be of use, and so I have kept it for you. Such a delicious irony."

Breaking open one of the leaves from the box, she touched the greenish powder within. Her long fingernail cut a fine line through the dust. Hoturi watched as the red enamel of her nail turned first to purple and then to black. She raised her eyes, fascinated by the change, and looked deeply into Hoturi's own. Her chin dimpled with a brooding smile. She placed the edge of her fingernail to his throat, lightly scratching his neck and leaving behind a thin trail of blood.

The pain was intense. As the powder on her nail mixed with his blood, the scent of sulfur and decay flooded Hoturi's nostrils. Kachiko stepped back. Her form swayed in his vision, blurred by agony and his own anger. Still, the lord of the Crane did not cry out, though his body tensed within the chains.

"Aramoro remembers the day he last saw you, before I became empress, Hoturi-sama," Kachiko whispered into his ear, relishing his anguish. Drawing another fingernail across his chest, she watched as her powder boiled within the wound. It turned to black, the edges of the scratch deepening and tearing open beneath the acidic corruption. "Do you remember it?"

"I... told you," Hoturi said through clenched teeth, "the day you turned me away."

"No, Hoturi." She smiled again, drawing her fingernail once more through the residue within the broken leaf. "Perhaps you do not remember, because it was such a simple thing. The day your forces assaulted Otosan Uchi—and the Crane captured the northern wall of the city?"

Hoturi remembered, biting back a wail as another cut burned across his muscular arm.

Her warm hand caressed the tension of his upraised limb, brushing through his pale hair. She did not pause in her discussion. "The day you fought the Scorpion that defended the Forbidden City was the last day I loved you."