“There is no one within hearing,” she said, “who has not already heard. You may speak plainly, Lord Yamada. I will do the same—I need your help.”
“You have read my answer,” I said.
“True, but you have not heard my trouble,” Teiko said softly. “Listen and then tell me what you will or will not do. Now then—do you remember a young Fujiwara named Kiyoshi?”
That was a name I had not heard in a long time. Kiyoshi was about my age when I came to the Court as a very minor official of the household. Since he was handsome, bright, and a Fujiwara, his destiny seemed fixed. Like Kanemore, he chose the somewhat disreputable bushi path instead, and died fighting the northern barbarians. He was one of the few of that clan I could tolerate, and I sincerely mourned his death.
“I do remember him,” I said.
“There is a rumor going around the Court that Kiyoshi was my lover and that my son Takahito is his issue, not my late husband’s.”
For a moment I could not speak. This matter was beyond serious. Gossip was close to the rule of law at Court. If this particular gossip was not silenced, both Takahito’s and Teiko’s positions at Court were in peril, and that was just for a start.
“Do you know who is responsible for the slander?”
“No. While it’s true that Kiyoshi was very dear to me, we grew up together at Court and our affections to each other were as brother and sister, as was well understood at the time. You know this to be true.”
I did, if I knew anything. “And you wish for me to discover the culprit? That will be . . . difficult.”
She laughed softly then, decorously covering her face with her fan even though the veil prevented me from seeing her face clearly. “Lord Yamada, even if I knew who started the rumors, it would do little good. People repeat the gossip now without even knowing from whom they heard it. What I require now is tangible and very public proof that the rumors are false.”
I considered. “I think that will be difficult as well. The only one who could swear to your innocence died fifteen years ago. Or am I to pursue his ghost?”
She laughed again. The sound was enchanting, but then everything about her was enchanting to me; there was a reason Princess Teiko was the most dangerous person in that room. I found myself feeling grateful the screen was in place as I forced myself to concentrate on the business at hand.
“Nothing so distasteful,” she said. “Besides, Kiyoshi died in loving service to my husband, the late Emperor, and on the path he himself chose. If he left a ghost behind, I would be quite surprised. No, Lord Yamada, Kiyoshi left something far more reliable—a letter. He sent it to me when he was in the north, just before . . . his final battle. It was intended for his favorite and was accompanied by a second letter for me.”
I frowned. “Why didn’t he send this letter to the lady directly?”
She sighed then. “Lord Yamada, are you a donkey after all? He couldn’t very well do so without compromising her. My friendship with Kiyoshi was well known; no one would think twice if I received a letter from him in those days. In his favorite’s case, the situation was quite different. You know the penalty for a Lady of the Court who takes a lover openly.”
I bowed again. I did know, and vividly: banishment or worse; yet, for someone born for the Court and knowing no other life, there probably was nothing worse. “Then clearly we need to acquire this letter. If it still exists, I imagine the lady in question will be reluctant to part with it. Who is she, if it is not indiscreet to ask?”
“Her name was Taira no Hoshiko, not that this is of consequence now. The letter was never delivered to her.” Teiko raised her hand to silence me before I even began. “Do not think so ill of me, Lord Yamada. News of Kiyoshi’s death reached us months before his letter did. By then my husband had given the wretched girl in marriage to the Lord of Hizen province as reward for some service or other, and I did not wish to risk complicating her new position. Since Kiyoshi’s letter was not intended for me, I never opened it. I should have destroyed it, I know, but I could not.”
“That decision was perhaps foolish but potentially fortunate. Though I presume there is a problem, or I would not be here?”
“The letter has been stolen, Lord Yamada. Without it I have no hope of saving my reputation and my son’s future from the crush of gossip.”
I let out a breath. “When did you notice the letter was missing?”
“Lord Sentaro says it disappeared three days ago.”
Now I really didn’t understand, and judging from the grunt to my immediate right, neither did Kanemore. “What has Lord Sentaro to do with this?”
“He is the Emperor’s Minister of Justice. In order to clear my reputation I had to let him know of the letter’s existence, and arrange a time for the letter to be read and witnessed. He asked that it be given to him for safekeeping. Since he was also Kiyoshi’s uncle, I couldn’t very well refuse.”
She said it so calmly, and yet she had just admitted cutting her own throat. “Teiko-hime, as much as this pains me to say, the letter has surely been destroyed.”
There was nothing but silence on the other side of the veil for several seconds, then she simply asked, “Oh? What makes you think so?”
I glanced at Kanemore, but there was no help from that direction. He looked as confused as I felt.
“Your pardon, Highness, but it’s my understanding that the Fujiwara have their own candidate for the throne. As a member of that family, it is in Lord Sentaro’s interest that the letter never resurface.”
“Lord Sentaro is perhaps overly ambitious,” Teiko said, and there was more than a hint of winter ice in her voice. “But he is also an honorable man. He was just here to acquaint me with the progress of the search. I believe him when he says the letter was stolen; I have less confidence in his ability to recover it. Lord Yamada, will you help me or not?”
I bowed again and made the only answer I could. “If it lies within my power, I will find that letter for you.”
Kanemore and I did not speak again until we had taken our leave of Princess Teiko. Kanemore was the first to break the silence.
“That,” he said after we had passed through the eastern gate, “was very strange.” The man had, besides his martial prowess, quite a gift for understatement.
“You didn’t know about the letter?”
“Teiko never mentioned it before, though it doesn’t surprise me. Yet . . . ”
“The business with the Minister of Justice does surprise you, yes?”
He looked at me. “Since my sister trusts you, I will speak plainly—Lord Sentaro is Chancellor Yorimichi’s primary agent in the Fujiwara opposition to Takahito. If I had been in Lord Sentaro’s place, I would have destroyed that letter the moment it fell into my hands and danced a tribute to the Gods of luck while it burned.”
I rubbed my chin. “Yet Teiko-hime is convinced the letter was not destroyed.”
Kanemore grunted again. “Over the years I’ve gone where my Emperor and his government have required. My sister, on the other hand, knows no world other than the Imperial Court. If Teiko were a koi, the Court would be her pond, if you take my meaning. So why would something that is immediately obvious to us both be so unclear to her?”
“Perhaps we’re the ones who aren’t clear,” I said. “Highness, let’s assume for that moment that your sister is right and that the letter was simply stolen. That would mean that Lord Sentaro had a good reason for not destroying it in the first place.”
“That makes sense. Yet I’m having some difficulty imagining that reason,” Kanemore admitted.
“As am I.”
I looked around. Our path paralleled the river Kamo for a time, then turned southwest. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were a few people on the road, apparently all in a rush to reach their destinations. Demons were about at this time of night, and everyone’s hurry and wariness was understandable. Kanemore and I were the only ones walking at a normal pace by the light of the setting moon.
“Your escort duties must be over by now and, as I’m sure you know, I’m used to moving about the city on my own,” I said.
Kanemore looked a little uncomfortable. “It was Teiko’s request. I know you can take care of yourself under most circumstances,” Kanemore said, and it almost sounded like a compliment, “but if someone did steal the letter, they obviously would not want it found, and your audience with my sister will not be a secret. Sentaro himself saw you, for one.”
“I didn’t think he recognized me.”
“I would not depend on that,” Kanemore said drily. “The man forgets nothing. His enemies, doubly so.”
“You flatter me. I was no threat to him, no matter how I might have wished otherwise.”
“If I may be so impolite as to ask, why did you resign your position and leave the Court? It could not have been easy to secure the appointment in the first place.”
Not easy at all, considering the stain on my family’s honor, though of course Prince Kanemore was too polite to mention it. While I had little doubt that he had already heard the story from Teiko, I didn’t mind repeating events as I remembered them.
“Your sister was kind to me, in those early days. Of course there would be those at Court who chose to misinterpret her interest, especially after the late Emperor chose her as a secondary wife. I had become a potential embarrassment to Princess Teiko, as Lord Sentaro delighted in making known to me.”
“Meaning he would have made certain of it,” Kanemore said. “I wondered.”
I shrugged. “I made my choice. Destiny is neither cruel nor kind. So, Kanemore-san, I’ve answered a personal question of yours, now I must ask one of you: what are you afraid of?”
“Death,” he said immediately. “I’ve never let that fear prevent me from doing what I must, but the fear remains.”
“That just means you’re not a fool, which I already knew. So, you fear death. Do you fear things that are already dead?”
“No . . . well, not especially,” he said, though he didn’t sound completely convincing or convinced. “Why do you ask?”
“I ask because I’m going to need help. If the letter is in the Imperial Compound, it’s beyond even your reach. Searching would be both dangerous and time-consuming.”
“Certainly,” Kanemore agreed. “Yet what’s the alternative?”
“The ‘help’ I spoke of. We’re going to need several measures of uncooked rice.”
He frowned. “I know where such can be had. Are you hungry?”
“No. But I can assure you that my informant is.”
About an hour later we passed through Rashamon, the southwest gate. There was no one about at this hour. The southwest exit of the city, like the northeast, was not a fortunate direction as the priests often said these were the directions from which both demons and trouble in general could enter the city. I sometimes wondered why anyone bothered to build gates at such places, since it seemed to be asking for trouble, yet I supposed the demands of roads and travelers outweighed the risks. Even so, unlike the Demon Gate to the northeast, the area around Rashamon was mostly deserted. Even the most loyal and hardened bushi would not accept a night watch at the Rasha Gate, and it was pretty much left open to the demons and ghosts, and anyone else who cared to use it.
The bridge I sought was part of a ruined family compound just outside the city proper, now marked by a brokendown wall and the remnants of a garden. In another place I would have thought this the aftermath of a war, but not here. Still, death often led to the abandonment of a home; no doubt this family had transferred their fortunes elsewhere and allowed this place to go to ruin. It was wasteful, but not unusual.
The compound was still in darkness, but there was a glow in the east; dawn was coming. I hurried through the ruins while Kanemore kept pace with me, his hand on his sword. There were vines growing on the stone bridge on the far side of the garden, but it was still intact and passable, giving an easy path over the wide stream beneath it. Not that crossing the stream was the issue. I pulled out one of the small bags of uncooked rice that Kanemore had supplied and opened it to let the scent drift freely on the night breezes.
The red lantern appeared almost instantly. It floated over the curve of the bridge as if carried by someone invisible, but that wasn’t really the case—the lantern carried itself. Its one glowing eye opened, and then its mouth.
I hadn’t spoken to the ghost in some time, and perhaps I was misremembering, but it seemed much bigger than it had been on our last meeting. Still, that wasn’t what caught my immediate attention—it was the creature’s long, pointed teeth.
Seita did not have teeth . . .
“Lord Yamada, drop!”
I didn’t question or hesitate but threw myself flat on the ground, just as the lantern surged forward and its mouth changed into a gaping maw. A shadow loomed over me, and then there was a flash of silver in the poor light. The lantern shrieked and then dissolved in a flare of light as if burning to ashes from within. I looked up to see the neatly sliced-open corpse of a youkai lying a few feet away from me. The thing was ugly, even for a monster, and a full eight feet tall, most of that consisting of mouth. The creature already stank like a cesspit, and in another moment it dissolved into black sludge and then vanished. I saw what looked like a scrap of paper fluttering on a weed before it blew away into the darkness.
Where did the thing go?
I didn’t have time to ponder; another lantern appeared on the bridge, and Kanemore made ready, but I got to my feet quickly.
“Stop. It’s all right.”
And so it was. Seita came gliding over the bridge, with his one eye cautiously watching the pair of us. Now I recognized the tear in the paper near his base and his generally tatty appearance; things that had been missing from the imposter’s disguise.
“Thank you for ridding me of that unpleasant fellow,” he said, “but don’t think for a moment that will warrant a reduction in my fee.”
Kanemore just stared at the ghost for a moment, then glanced at me, but I indicated silence. “Seita-san, you at least owe me an explanation for allowing your patron to walk into an ambush. How long has that thing been here?”
I think Seita tried to shrug, but that’s hard to do when your usual manifestation is a red paper lantern with one eye, one mouth and no arms, legs, or shoulders.
“A day or so. Damned impertinent of it to usurp my bridge, but it was strong and I couldn’t make it leave. I think it was waiting on someone. You, perhaps?”
“Perhaps? Almost certainly, yet that doesn’t concern me now. I need your services.”
“So I assumed,” said the lantern. “What do you want to know?”
“A letter was stolen from the Imperial Compound three days ago. I need to know who took it and where that letter is now. It bears the scent of Fujiwara no Kiyoshi, among others.”
Kanemore could remain silent no more. He leaned close and whispered, “Can this thing be trusted?”
“That ‘thing’ remark raises the price,” Seita said. “Four bowls.”
“I apologize on behalf of my companion. Two now,” I countered, “two more when the information is delivered. Bring the answer by tomorrow night, and I’ll add an extra bowl.”
The lantern grinned very broadly. “Then you can produce five bowls of uncooked rice right now. I have your answer.”
That surprised me. I’d expected at least a day’s delay. “Seita-san, I know you’re very skilled or I wouldn’t have come to you first, but how could you possibly know about the letter already? Were the rei involved?”
He looked a little insulted. “Lord Yamada, we ghosts have higher concerns than petty theft. This was the work of shikigami. The fact that they were about in the first place caught my attention, but I do not know who sent them. That is a separate question and won’t be answered so quickly or easily.”
“Time is short. I’ll settle for the location of the letter.”
Seita gave us directions to where the let
ter was hidden. We left the rice in small bags, with chopsticks thrust upright through the openings as proper for an offering to the dead. I offered a quick prayer for Seita’s soul, but we didn’t stay to watch; I’d seen the ghost consume an offering before, and it was . . . unsettling.
“Can that thing be trusted?” Kanemore repeated when we were out of earshot of the bridge, “and what is this shikigami it was referring to?”
“As for trusting Seita, we shall soon know. That thing you killed at the bridge was a shikigami, and it’s very strange to encounter one here. Thank you, by the way. I owe you my life.”
Kanemore grunted. “My duty served, though you are quite welcome. Still, you make deals with ghosts, and encountering a simple monster is strange?”
“A shikigami is not a monster, simple or otherwise. A youkai is its own creature and has its own volition, nasty and evil though that may be. A shikigami is a created thing; it has no will of its own, only that of the one who created it.”
He frowned. “Are you speaking of sorcery?”
“Yes,” I said, “and of a high order. I should have realized when the thing disappeared. A monster or demon is a physical creature and, when slain, leaves a corpse like you or I would. A shikigami almost literally has no separate existence. When its purpose is served or its physical form too badly damaged, it simply disappears. At most it might leave a scrap of paper or some element of what was used to create it.”
“So one of these artificial servants acquired the letter and hid it in the Rasha Gate. Fortunate, since that’s on our way back into the city.”
“Very fortunate.”
Kanemore glanced at me. “You seem troubled. Do you doubt the ghost’s information?”
“Say rather I’m pondering something I don’t understand. There were rumors that Lord Sentaro dabbled in Chinese magic, even when I was at Court. Yet, even if that were true, why would he choose shikigami to spirit the letter away? It was in his possession to begin with; removing it and making that removal seem like theft would be simple enough to arrange without resorting to such means.”
Kanemore shrugged. “I’ve heard these rumors as well, but I gave them no credence. Even so, it is the letter that concerns me, not the workings of Lord Sentaro’s twisted mind.”
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