L5r - scroll 01 - The Scorpion

by Stephen D. Sullivan

  Whatever thoughts Bayushi Shoju had, he kept to himself. Kachiko had never seen her husband like this before, and it disturbed her. There were momentous decisions to be made, decisions that would affect the entire empire. Surely they should face the trials ahead together—just as they had in the past, just as they had when they pored over the scroll in Kyuden Bayushi.

  Separately, she or Shoju might falter, but together . . . together they were invincible—he the hidden face and well-tempered sword, she the soft, outstretched hand that held either the lotus blossom or sweet poison. The Scorpion lord and lady perfectly represented the dual nature of their clan. No one in all of Rokugan could stand against them.

  Now, the mask of the Scorpion lord hid his face from her just as it did from the rest of the world. What lay behind the mask? When their journey was over, would she even recognize Shoju's face?

  This was nonsense. He removed his mask every night before they went to bed—even while in their pavilion on the road. It was a sign of their trust. Kachiko sometimes wondered if, despite all his power, Shoju feared he would lose control of the clan if his true face were revealed.

  She liked to think that it would make no difference, that Scorpions were trained to see the worth of a man behind his face. An ugly leader—for there was no other word to describe Shoju's countenance—was no less worthy than a beautiful one. This was a basic difference between Scorpion and Crane. For the Crane, truth and beauty went hand in hand.

  One good thing had come from a beautiful Crane: Dairu, her son—no, Shoju's son. Kachiko wondered again if the Scorpion lord had left his heir at Kyuden Bayushi for reasons of security, or if somewhere deep inside, he still harbored resentment over the boy's lineage.

  Kachiko's gilded palanquin box felt suddenly hot. A tense pain filled her head. She rubbed her temples and calmed her breathing. Such thoughts were useless.

  Shoju had never treated her boy... their boy with anything but respect. Nor had he treated her badly. In fact, he was the only man in her life who had not. The Scorpion lord had earned his wife's respect by giving her his own.

  She had earned his trust by not shying away when he revealed his true face to her on their wedding night. Growing up with her brother had shown her that the way things looked mattered little. Shosuro Hametsu was fair of face and form, but his soul was empty. He was hardly worthy to be a Scorpion. He would have made a better Crane.

  Of course, their father could not see that. He judged Hametsu worthy to be his heir, though Kachiko was firstborn. Her father thought her beauty and sex ill fitted her to lead their clan. He considered her a trifle, a poisonous butterfly. He and her brother had judged Kachiko by her appearance. How wrong they had been.

  How many times did the Scorpion masters teach that a man or woman's value should be determined by actions? Kachiko's actions, her intellect, had proved her worthy to be advisor to the emperor and the Mother of Scorpions.

  It was no wonder Shoju kept his countenance hidden. Though time and again he had proved his worthiness to lead the Scorpions, still some part of him must have feared to show his face to those unworthy to judge him.

  Kachiko felt unworthy as well. A mother's fears pulled at her heartstrings. The Master of Secrets betrayed his own deepest thoughts to no one. Thus, she wondered about her son—and Dairu's future.

  xxxxxxxx

  As they neared the castle, the Scorpion host was surprised to see decorative banners unfurled from the keep's high tower.

  Tetsuo leaned close to Shoju, who rode beside him. "Is there a festival I've forgotten about?"

  The Scorpion lord shook his head. Behind his mask, his face grew grim.

  Golden banners, decorated with the Bayushi Scorpion mon, hung from the castle's balconies. The sight surprised Shoju. The Master of Secrets didn't like surprises.

  "What does it mean, do you think?" Tetsuo asked.

  "We'll find out soon enough," Shoju replied. The fact that he had no better answer disturbed him. His thoughts on the return journey had been dark, terribly dark. He had shut himself off from others, even from Tetsuo and Kachiko. The business of the Scorpion was often bleak, but what waited before them .... Shoju saw no reason to burden others with it until he had sorted out his own thoughts.

  The banners disturbed him. They flapped like the wings of birds circling their prey; the rustling of the fabric grated on his ears, like standards on a battlefield. In his mind's eye he saw the battles before him clearly, just as he had in his dreams. The dead would form mountains higher than Kyuden Bayushi's tallest tower.

  This banner-shrouded keep was not his home—not the home he expected to return to. Who could have done such a thing? His mouth grew tight and, absent-mindedly, he rubbed his lame shoulder.

  As they rode toward the castle, the gates of Kyuden Bayushi opened. A great company of men rode out. All were samurai, dressed in their finest kimonos. At their head rode a man on a li a If-Unicorn steed, wearing a fine mask and a brilliantly decorated robe. He carried the mon of the Scorpion.

  Though all the samurai wore Scorpion colors, Tetsuo's hand stole to the hilt of his katana. Had some other lord usurped the castle in their absence?

  Tetsuo fought down a shiver. He joined his daimyo as Shoju rode to meet the column. If the Scorpion felt any fear, lie did not betray it. Other samurai, including Rumiko, quickly fell in behind their master.

  As they rode closer, Tetsuo recognized many of the men in the column. They were retainers from the castle, some he had known all his life. This fact did not make him feel any more at ease.

  Shoju reined up in front of the leader of the column. Before the Scorpion lord could speak, the man dismounted. In his hand, the man held the banner of the Scorpion. All the other samurai climbed down from their horses as well. The leader of i he group bowed low, but made sure not to touch the banner on the ground.

  "Father," he said from behind his ornate mask, "we welcome you home. The sun and the moon have returned to Kyuden Bayushi this day."

  Tetsuo breathed a sigh of relief. Amid all the finery, he had failed to recognize Dairu, the young Scorpion prince. The boy (hey had left behind now carried himself like a man. Could he have grown up so much in the month and a half that they had been gone?

  Bayushi Shoju wondered the same thing but, behind his mask, his face betrayed nothing. The tattoo on his shoulder lingled; he ignored it.

  "Dairu," he said sternly, "what is the meaning of all this?"

  The boy looked up at the Scorpion lord, and Shoju could see the youth and worry in his eyes.

  "I thought to welcome you home, Bayushi-sama," he said. "You, and mother. We are glad at your return. We are proud to be your people." He tried to make the words brave, but

  Shoju—and even Tetsuo—could hear a slight tremble in the voice.

  Behind his mask, the Scorpion's mouth drew into a broad smile. His thoughts had been so lost in conspiracies that the simplest explanation for the banners had completely escaped him.

  "Did I do wrong, Father?" Dairu asked.

  Shoju dismounted and stood beside the youth.

  "No," he said. "You have done well, my son." He gestured to the gates of the castle and walked toward them with the boy. The host and the greeting column fell in behind them.

  Within her ornate palanquin, Kachiko sighed. The fist within her breast uncurled its fingers.

  As Shoju walked, he heard a song emanating from somewhere deep within the palace. The melody spoke of battle, and death, and victory. Shoju had heard it many times before, though it seemed closer now.

  He ignored the siren call and concentrated on enjoying the moment with his son.

  xxxxxxxx

  The fire of sunset burned the sky red as storm clouds rolled in from the east. Soon the clouds smothered the last rays of Amaterasu, and dark night enshrouded the keep of the Scorpions.

  Dairu had ordered a grand welcoming feast for his parents' return. The Mother of Scorpions herself could not have done better. The food was appealing and plenti
ful without being ostentatious. The dancers were graceful and the musicians pleasing to the ear. Of all the decorations, only the golden banners outside seemed boastful, and these Dairu had removed as soon as his mother and father entered the keep.

  Though the bleak days ahead kept Shoju from enjoying the celebration fully, the Scorpion lord felt proud of the work his son had done. He reminded himself to move the date of the boy's gempuku forward. They would need all the men they had in the time to come.

  If Kachiko felt the Scorpion lord's trepidation, she did not show it. The celebration their son had arranged drove the dark clouds from the Scorpion lady's mind. She doted on Dairu during the evening in a way that embarrassed the boy and brought a wry smile to Shoju's lips. Even his lovely wife, with her brilliant mind, could still be an indulgent mother.

  The Scorpion had donned a festive mask before the feast, both to compliment his heir .and to better hide his uneasy spirit. The sight of his wife and son enjoying themselves warmed the Shoju's heart. As the evening slipped by, he could almost forget what lay ahead.

  Almost.

  As he allowed sake to dull his senses, the song Shoju had heard outside the castle welled up in his brain once more. The melody sounded more seductive than it ever had before. It twined itself around the Scorpion's soul.

  He could almost taste its power—power waiting beneath the red roofs of Kyuden Bayushi. Waiting for him to seize it, to take it up. It lay so very close at hand. Shoju would answer the song's call soon enough. Within the song lay his destiny.

  Across the room, Yogo Junzo, who had returned to the castle ahead of the rest, raised his cup in a silent toast to the Scorpion lord.

  Shoju nodded and raised his cup in return.

  xxxxxxxx

  Deep in the black of night, the revelry exhausted itself. Most of the Scorpion retainers had crept to their chambers by the time Shoju dismissed the entertainers.

  Dairu, his head resting on his mother's breast, looked up sleepily at his father. "Is it dawn already?" he asked. "I ordered them to play until dawn."

  "Dawn comes early after a long trip," Shoju said. "Even the Lord of the Scorpions needs sleep—as do you, my son."

  Dairu smiled. "Have I done well, my father?"

  Shoju nodded.

  "Of course you have," Kachiko said, running her fingers through her son's hair. "No man could have done better."

  "Am I to be a man, then?" Dairu asked, dreams already clouding his vision.

  Shoju laid a hand on his shoulder. "Soon. Very soon," he said, and thought, sooner than I had hoped.

  The daimyo offered his hand to his son—his right hand— and helped the boy to his feet. Dairu took the hand, not suspecting the significance. Nor did any of the other half-awake samurai remaining in the room suspect either.

  Only Kachiko knew what the gesture truly meant. Bayushi Shoju rarely offered his hand to anyone, man or woman. When he did, it was always the left hand he offered—the hand attached to his good arm. Because of the weakness of Shoju's right arm, the Scorpion daimyo didn't offer that hand to anyone except those he completely trusted. He'd offered it to her and embraced her with it many times. He'd offered it to Tetsuo upon occasion. If court functions required it, he might also offer that hand to the emperor. However, since left-hand-edness was a tradition among Scorpions, it was not often that such an occasion arose. Of all Rokugan's people, those were the only three Kachiko had seen Bayushi Shoju offer his right hand. Now there was a fourth—his son.

  Kachiko cursed herself for ever having doubted her husband's intentions toward the boy. She had once wondered if Shoju merely kept the child as a weapon against Dairu's blood father. No longer.

  The best lie is often the truth, Shoju said frequently. It was a maxim he and Kachiko lived by. But sometimes, as Shinsei had taught, things are merely what they seem to be.

  Shoju's love for their son had been genuine all these years, and yet, Kachiko had seen sinister motives behind his actions. She had done him a grave wrong.

  Warm love for her husband welled up in her breast. She was proud of him, of the burden he had borne for her all these years—almost since the day of their marriage. She wished, more fervently than she ever had before, that she had been able to bear him another child.

  The Fortunes had not been so kind to the couple. Whether the fault lay with him or her, she could not say. Both times she had gotten pregnant after Dairu, she had not been able to carry the baby to term. That fact wounded Shoju as deeply as it wounded her. Being the chief of Scorpions, he hid it well.

  There was no hiding his feelings for his son this night—not from her.

  "To bed now, Son," the Scorpion said to his offspring. "We have much work ahead of us."

  Dairu nodded sleepily. "Hai, Father." He mounted the staircase at the end of the room and went upstairs toward his summer quarters.

  Kachiko rose from her cushions and stood next to her husband. "To bed?" she asked, slipping her hand into his.

  "Hai," he said, nodding wearily.

  Together, they ascended the great staircase. When they reached the top, Shoju turned aside from the corridor leading to their usual chambers. She looked at him questioningly.

  He said nothing, but slipped his right hand in her left and led her down the hall. Diverting through several concealed panels, they arrived in the Nightingale Room. It was a small, plain, L-shaped chamber sequestered within the fortress among the topmost floors. A clever arrangement of mirrors usually flooded the room with light from a window in another part of the castle. Tonight, the room was dark, save for the occasional flash of lightning from the storm.

  Again, she looked at him, questioning.

  "The room's music will make me sleep better," he said, his voice like distant thunder.

  Kachiko smiled and nodded. He stepped into the room. The floorboards chirped sweetly, as if nightingales lived in the wood. The music it made was beautiful, but it masked a more practical purpose: no enemy could come into the room without making the floor sing.

  The Mistress of Scorpions crossed the room with her lord. She lit a single beeswax candle on a small table near the thick quilt that served as the room's bed. The futon was hidden from the room's fusuma entrance by the bend in the room. This made it impossible to see—or attack—someone in the far end of the room while standing in the entrance.

  Despite what Shoju said about music, the lack of noise in the room during the night would make her husband sleep better. He lay down on the bed and reclined himself on one elbow. She lay down beside him and whispered in his ear.

  "I have never loved you more than I do at this moment," she said, her voice like honey. He reached up and removed the delicate lace mask from her face. Gently, she removed his mask as well. They kissed.

  When they separated, she turned and blew out the candle.

  XXXXXXXX

  After the fury of the storm subsided, they lay together in the darkness and listened to the distant thunder. In the back of his mind, Shoju heard faint music as well. It was not the floor of the Nightingale Room that sang, but a different, disturbing music.

  He looked at his wife, her pale head resting on his chest, and caressed her dark hair.

  "I love you," he said.

  She looked up at him, knowing that what he said was not what he intended to say. Still, she drank in the words and savored them.

  "As I, you," she replied.

  "I need you now more than ever," he told her.

  She nodded and ran her hand across his chest. "You know 1 am with you," she said. "Always."

  "The game we must play is more dangerous than any a Scorpion has ever played before."

  "And the stakes far higher," she agreed. "What must I do?"

  "I have thought things over since 1 spoke with the Great Dragon," he said. "I can see many paths—though not all. You know the information that our spies brought us while we traveled, but you do not know my mind on these matters."

  "Only because you have not shared your thoughts
with me," she said, "but I know you only do what you must, and I know the emperor must die."

  "Hai," Shoju said softly.

  In the distance, thunder echoed off the Spine of the World Mountains.

  Kachiko's hand reached up and stroked his face. "Shall I kill him for you? A simple poison would suffice. I could slip it into his food. It would not matter if I was caught."

  "You would do that for me?"

  She nodded. "Of course."

  He stroked her hair. "I will not sacrifice you to my ambition."

  They embraced each other for a long moment.

  Shoju let out a long breath. "The heir must die as well," he said. "The scroll said the last Hantei would loose Fu Leng on Rokugan. The boy cannot be spared."

  "Then I shall kill him as well. For you."

  Shoju shook his head. "Again, I say no. If I am to pay in blood, the blood will be my own."

  "Someone must lead the empire after the Hantei are gone," she said. "Who better than you?"

  "Who better?" he repeated quietly. In Bayushi Shoju's mind, the song of steel grew stronger.

  "Who better to lead the world through the dark times ahead? Who is stronger than you? Who more clever? Who more loyal?" Her breathing grew shallow with excitement, and her nostrils flared slightly. Shoju fancied he could see the green flecks sparkling in her black eyes. She leaned up and whispered in his ear, "No one. Together, we are invincible. No one can stand in your way."

  "One might," Shoju said.

  Kachiko arched her delicate eyebrows. "Who?"

  "The Lion, Akodo Toturi," he replied.

  "He is merely a cub," she said, biting his left earlobe.

  " 'Even a lion cub may someday lead the pride,' Shinsei said."

  "But a cub may also be devoured by his own kind," Kachiko replied. "Or brought to ruin by his own follies."

  He looked at her, and she smiled. "Have you found such follies in Toturi?" he asked.

  "You may not think it," she said playfully, "but my ears are very large. There is little they do not hear."

  "Then you have done as I asked? Discovered Toturi's weakness?"