The Emperor in Shadow

by Richard Parks

  I understood the last bit to be rhetorical, and did not answer. Not that he would have been listening in the first place, as all his attention was on the remains of the shikigami.

  “Well,” he said finally.

  “Well, what?” Kenji asked. “Was this creature created by one of your students or not?”

  “Not,” the old man said. “I remember the scripting style of all my pupils. This person’s work is not one I recognize.”

  My heart sank a little, even though I knew this had been a wager with long odds. “Can you tell us anything at all? It is important.”

  “So I assumed, as you are not the sort to visit a lonely old man out of the goodness of your heart.”

  Kenji simply spared a gaze toward heaven, but before he could say anything, I silenced him with a hard glance. “We would be grateful for anything you could tell us.”

  “Well, there is one curious bit here . . . ” He held out the paper. “See this group of kanji? It contains the instructions for the final form of the shikigami. Yet this is also the place where a very fine, precise script turns, in my opinion, a bit clumsy. It would definitely affect the appearance.”

  I frowned. “You’re saying the creator deliberately made the creature less human-looking than it might have?”

  He raised one hand. “Not necessarily. They simply might not have cared that the creature’s appearance would have been compromised. I’m only saying that the care and precision of the rest of the spell is not duplicated in this one place, and it would have made a significant difference in the final creature.”

  “Yet the creator was capable of making a much more refined shikigami than the one they did create,” Kenji said.

  “Oh, without question,” Chang Yu said.

  “That is indeed curious,” I said.

  “I’m pleased you find it interesting,” he said, “as I’m afraid this is all I can tell you. So, if you don’t mind? You’re scaring my customers away.”

  “So you’re not going to demand a reward? I’m shocked.”

  “Shocked, surprised, whatever, it is all the same to me,” Chang Yu said. “Just do not visit me again for another three years. If you can do this, I will consider myself well-compensated.”

  “I can make no promises, but I will try.”

  “That is promise enough. Good day to you.”

  Outside, Kenji and I exchanged glances. “Did that seem a bit odd to you?” I asked.

  “The nature of the shikigami or that Master Chang Yu did not demand some outlandish fee?”

  “Well, both, but to be fair, he did not do so the last time we visited, either.”

  “Special circumstances,” Kenji said, “as I’m sure you remember. No, it was Master Chang Yu himself. I wasn’t certain at first, but the more he spoke, the more certain I became. He was honestly frightened.”

  “Not of us, I wager. While I have occasionally been a thorn in Master Chang Yu’s side, I only placed him in real physical danger one time. Most of our interactions have been no more than annoyances, from his perspective. This was different. Do you think he was lying about not recognizing the script? I’m not certain.”

  Kenji shook his head, though clearly with reluctance. “Not about everything. Now that he’s pointed out the discrepancy, I can see it myself. However, perhaps he did recognize the script, and that is what frightened him. I believe he knows more than he has said.”

  “Ujiyasu and I could have a talk with him,” Morofusa offered.

  “Tempting,” Kenji said, and I could see he was trying not to smile.

  “Agreed, but likely not productive. A frightened man and a coerced man are likely to say something, but not necessarily the truth. And whether he told you the truth or not, then it would be necessary to kill him, as once he recovered . . . well, you do not want that man for an enemy,” I said. “Besides, I may need his help again, however reluctantly he may give it.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  I also knew, despite Master Chang Yu’s bluster and complaining, there were very few things which actually frightened him. The fact he was frightened was interesting and possibly informative, but for the moment I turned my attention back to the shikigami.

  “Let us walk,” I said.

  “Where?” Morofusa asked.

  “In some direction or other, it is of no importance. I need to think, and sometimes walking helps.”

  I happened to be facing east when I spoke, so we started in that direction. I knew we were not very far from the Gion shrine, which was as good a destination as any, especially if one cared more about the inward journey than where one was physically going. Silence was Morofusa and Ujiyasu’s normal state save for when speech was required, but it was not Kenji’s. Yet he kept silent for the most part, though now and then he would glance at me as if trying to judge the direction of my thoughts. I knew he was having his own mental journey, and I wondered if we would arrive in the same place.

  “Why would an onmyōji whose work is characteristically precise and refined allow one section—and a rather crucial one—be so slovenly?” I finally asked aloud.

  “I wondered if that was the part troubling you,” Kenji said. “After all, it is the sort of thing that would. An insignificant detail—”

  “—That Master Chang Yu was careful to bring to our attention. Granted, it might really be insignificant, merely a bit of haste, or something of the sort. Everyone makes mistakes, even a person that we, from our one example, presume to be the meticulous sort.”

  “Quite right. A mistake. A bit of carelessness in an otherwise superior creation. So why does it trouble you?”

  “Suppose it was not a mistake?”

  “What would be the reason for making a less effective assassin? Something that could pass for human closer than, say, a bowshot, would certainly be more useful,” Kenji said.

  “Certainly, if the creature was intended to be an assassin.”

  Now Morofusa and Ujiyasu were staring at me, along with Kenji. “What other reason could there possibly be?” Kenji asked.

  “A good question, and I do not—yet—know the answer. However, I do not believe in coincidences, and that the onmyōji would err so obviously in exactly this spot when they had erred nowhere else? It stretches my belief past breaking. This magician is clearly a master, and it would have been trivial for such a person to create a shikigami which could pass for a Taira bushi quite long enough to enter the sleeping quarters and finish the assignment Minamoto no Yorinobu began.”

  Kenji stared at me a little longer, opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed. “If you are right, then this creature wasn’t designed to succeed. It was designed to fail.”

  “Which makes even less sense, I know, but I am reluctantly coming to that conclusion,” I said. “Though if Princess Tagako was guarded by anyone less capable than Toshihide-shōshō’s bushi, it might have completed its mission, but then whoever made it would likely have known who they were up against.”

  “Which leaves my original question—if not an assassination, then what was the intent?”

  “If I can answer that, I think we’ll finally know why Princess Tagako was targeted in the first place.”

  “We still cannot yet eliminate Moritomo as the onmyōji,” Kenji said. “While his previous work did look somewhat crude by comparison, there is always the chance it was all done in haste. His avian shikigami was crude, but extremely powerful, and for all we know it was just such a one that dropped the last shikigami into Prince Kanemore’s garden.”

  By this time the curved tiled roofs of the Gion Shrine had come into view above the trees. “Let us return to our quarters. It’s possible Toshihide has already answered that question.”

  When we returned to my compound there was, indeed, a very succinct letter from Toshihide:

  Lord Norimichi requested the prisoner be turned over to the Gyōbu-shō. As this was a lawful order, it was obeyed. Current whereabouts of Moritomo unknown.

  “Well, that is that,
” Kenji said. “The Fujiwara still control the Ministry of Justice, so either Moritomo was eliminated to keep him quiet or spirited away for possible future—or current—use. Either way, he’s beyond our reach.”

  “Odd that the chancellor would get personally involved,” Morofusa said.

  “If he was the one who first pulled Governor Yorinobu’s string, it would not be odd in the least. So I think we have learned this much,” I said.

  “Are you accusing the chancellor of treason?” Morofusa asked.

  “Not at all. He would have no reason to involve himself in this, but if he chose to do so it proves nothing. It does, however imply much. I took it as given that one of the two clan heads of the Fujiwara ordered Tagako-hime’s assassination. Now I have a reason to consider one over the other. That is all.”

  “It is dangerous ground, either way,” Morofusa said.

  “I think Yamada-sama is well aware of this,” Kenji said dryly.

  Morofusa bowed. “If I have overstepped my bounds, forgive me, Yamada-sama, but as I am sworn to protect you, I must caution you against all dangers.”

  “Noted and understood, just as you all—Ujiyasu included—must understand I have not and will not make any accusations I cannot prove. That leaves me with the problem of how best to protect Her Highness until the situation is resolved. Toshihide-shōshō has requested my assistance, which is good, since I had planned to give it whether he wished it or not.”

  The number of those guarding Princess Tagako was increased by four: myself, Kenji, Morofusa, and Ujiyasu. While Toshihide welcomed the assistance, he was a bit nervous about keeping our presence hidden from the princess.

  “We must be careful on that score,” he said. “Princess Tagako is of generally sweet temperament, but she doesn’t like to be deceived any more than another person.”

  “I do not see this as deception, as we have her best interests and safety at heart. Regardless, I think I can be of more use to her if I am not in attendance on her.”

  “I do hope she sees the situation this way, should it ever come to light . . . which it almost certainly will,” Toshihide said.

  I understood Toshihide’s concern, but I did not let it sway me. First we joined in the patrols about the grounds so I could familiarize myself with the layout. While I had visited my friend in this very compound even before I had met Princess Tagako, those occasions had never required me to study the grounds and location of all buildings. For the most part, there was little to distinguish Prince Kanemore’s compound from a thousand others: the great hall connected to adjoining east and west wings, sleeping quarters attached to the main hall, a garrison building attached in the rear, several outbuildings mostly for storage and food preparation. The only odd feature was the garrison building, rare among the mansions of the nobility in the Capital; they were much more common among the military families of the provinces, which is likely where Kanemore got the idea to add one of his own.

  I knew Kanemore, with his martial skill and gift for tactical advantage, would be a natural to found a new military family loyal to the emperor, and I prayed that one day he would have the opportunity. For now and for the threat I saw to Princess Tagako, I simply wanted to strangle him.

  One face-to-face meeting.

  That would be more than enough, I believed, to determine why Tagako was threatened and how to end the threat. So why was this proving to be so difficult to achieve? Prince Kanemore understood the danger she was in, or else why place her under his protection and dedicate his best commander, Toshihide, to guard her? He almost certainly knew more about the underlying reasons for the predicament Princess Tagako found herself.

  To be fair or, minimally, attempt fairness, I knew there were great matters being decided behind the scenes, and no doubt Prince Kanemore’s role in them was much greater than I could imagine or even possibly comprehend. Only a fool would assume otherwise. While it was true the boy I had known as Takahito was Kanemore’s nephew, he was also now a grown man and the emperor, and if His Majesty commanded his uncle to act a certain way, go to a certain place, accomplish a certain thing, of course Kanemore must and would obey. Yet, with all this understood, the situation seemed to demand I be reduced to listening for arrows and hoping I’d be fast enough to deflect the next one. I was, even considering it in the best perspective, not happy.

  Fortunately, this state of discontent was very comfortable and familiar to me. After our scouting patrol around the outer wall, I took a better look at all the storage buildings located on the north side of the compound.

  “How are resupplies arranged?” I asked.

  “They are brought to the north gate on a weekly schedule,” Toshihide said. “While our sources are trustworthy, we examine everything and bring it inside ourselves. No one from the outside is allowed in. Any food or drink prepared for Her Highness is of course tested beforehand.”

  I was impressed. This was a detail which could have easily been overlooked. Although none of the attempts so far had been as subtle as poison, poison was always an option and one I would have expected of the Fujiwara. Michinori—I now suspected—had initially entrusted the undertaking to the Kawachi governor, and all attempts had been anything but subtle. This spoke to the chaos within the leadership Kenji had related to me, and the former governor had all but confirmed. I admitted gratitude for the discord among the Fujiwara. Aside from their being powerless so far to interfere with the new emperor’s policies, I had to think Princess Tagako might owe her life to the confusion among the clan.

  While I did not and likely never would understand the true scope and machinations of imperial politics, there was one aspect of the Capital dynamic I understood very well. I took Kenji aside.

  “Princess Tagako is to be married. We do not know to whom, nor does she. Yet royal betrothals are normally announced by decree. Why hasn’t this one?”

  “We simply do not know.”

  “Exactly—it is a secret . . . or appears to be. Where does one go in the Capital, if one wishes to discover a secret?”

  I saw the light dawning in Kenji’s eyes. “One goes to someone with their ear to the ground, someone who specializes in learning things not commonly known, a person for whom such information is both weapon and guard. What are you thinking, Lord Yamada? Takamasa?”

  “I hesitate to go that far yet. I was considering another old acquaintance. It is well past time we paid a visit to the Widow Tamahara.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The following evening Kenji and I kneeled around a low table at the Widow Tamahara’s establishment, along with a very nervous Morofusa and Ujiyasu. If the place had a more proper and official name, no one I knew had ever used it, including the Widow Tamahara herself. Morofusa and Ujiyasu’s unease I at first attributed to the other patrons arranged around the room, everyone from unemployed bushi to minor palace officials at their own tables. It was not a very secure situation and there was no way to make it so, despite the quite impressive guards the Widow Tamahara employed to keep order. I knew from experience she hired such men for their intimidating appearance more than their martial skills, which from her standpoint was logical—the presence of such imposing guards tended to make others behave themselves, even after a few cups.

  “Quite a varied clientele,” Morofusa observed.

  “Many people come through here at one time or another,” I said, “not excluding men as high ranking as Prince Kanemore or Lord Yoshiie.”

  “We once fought thirty shikigami in this very room,” Kenji said. “Alongside Lord Yoshiie, whose weapon was a broken bench.”

  The two bushi looked around again, almost startled. “I had heard of that incident,” Morofusa said. “It really happened? It was here?”

  “Yes,” I said, “though I doubt we will be so disturbed this evening.”

  A pretty young woman approached us and bowed. “What is your pleasure, gentlemen?”

  I blinked. “Kaoru-chan? Is that you?”

  Her expression brightened. �
�Lord Yamada! I had heard you were back in the Capital, though I did not expect to see you.”

  She had been little more than a girl when I left for Kamakura, an orphan under the Widow Tamahara’s protection. The old woman had taken her in because of her potential usefulness, but over time she had developed an actual fondness for the girl, and now Kaoru was probably the closest thing to a daughter the old woman would ever know or acknowledge. I fully expected Kaoru to inherit the place, assuming she could survive its inherent dangers and temptations. Still, I was cautiously optimistic on Kaoru’s behalf—I knew she was a lot tougher than she looked. I quickly made introductions around the table. If anything, both Morofusa and Ujiyasu looked more nervous than before, though Kaoru politely pretended not to notice.

  “If you would, bring saké for the table, and a word to your mistress—I would like to speak with her.”

  “I will tell her, but I must warn you she is not in her best temper.”

  “When was she ever?” I asked.

  Kaoru hid a smile and hurried off behind a fabric screen in the rear of the main hall.

  Ujiyasu watched her go. “Is she . . . ?”

  I frowned. “Is she what?”

  “This place—”

  For a moment I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but when I saw the amusement growing on Kenji’s face, I finally understood. I tended to forget that both Morofusa and Ujiyasu were provincial bushi and neither had spent a great deal of time in the Capital, certainly not in places such as this. In the provinces brothels were a bit more open and obvious about the services provided, and it was clear neither Morofusa nor Ujiyasu, unlike the general reputation of men of their station, regularly frequented such places.

  “Ah. In regards to Kaoru-chan, the answer is no, and anyone attempting otherwise would likely find themselves battered senseless—and you had best pray it was one of the guards responsible and not Mistress Tamahara herself. But, yes, this is such a place, or that is part of its function. Do not worry—no one bites, with the exception of the Widow Tamahara.”