Prince of Outcasts (39 page)

Daughter of the Empire. Daughter of the Sun. My beloved child.

She sighed and opened her eyes again. “But please remember that I was Amaterasu-ōmikami's vessel, not the Sun Goddess' very self. I am Her descendant, and by Her own choice Her daughter . . . but not Her. And while the Great Kami are other than we, and while they are vastly more than we in knowledge and in power, even they do not know all things. They are not omnipotent, nor infallible. And neither am I!”

Reiko pointed with her fan to the stump of his left hand; it was healing well with no infection, but not yet strong enough to bear more than bandages:

“What did I say to you on the beach, after you took that wound in my service, and you asked me what good a one-handed swordsman could be?”

He bowed from his sitting position, and spoke with his harsh growling voice made soft:

“That I would serve you with what was here”—he lifted his right hand—“and here”—he touched his breast—“and what was here.”

His hand moved to his forehead, and she nodded.

“So, please bear that in mind, my
bushi
. If our people's great virtues are loyalty and discipline, so we have a besetting vice, and it is telling superiors what they want to hear.”

“
Hai, Heika
, that is unquestionably true,” Egawa said.

Reiko suppressed a laugh she would have had to hide with her fan.

Truly his spirit is lighter since we have recovered the Sacred Treasure. Irony from Egawa Noboru! Playfulness from forged iron!

He nodded a touch too solemnly. “So my father also said, Majesty, numerous times. Everyone agreed with him.”

This time she
did
laugh. Egawa Katashi had formed and led the Seventy Loyal Men who had rescued her toddler grandmother from the unimaginable horrors of Change-stricken Tokyo, and he had also ruled what was left of Japan with iron hand and iron will almost from the day he arrived on Sado-ga-shima. Arrived with one injured little girl who was
the sole survivor of the dynasty, and a few score remaining followers equipped with swords and armor from museums or his own collections. And a vision of the future based on his lifelong dream of Nihon's past, in a time when all certainties had vanished in that single moment of light and pain and its terrible aftermath. Only his own sense of duty had made him step aside to become an elder statesman and councilor when her father came of age, when he might have continued to rule from behind the Chrysanthemum Throne like many a warlord before him.

And in Kamakura times not only were the Emperors often obedient to the Retired Emperor, and both were puppets of the Minamoto Shoguns, the Shoguns themselves were puppets of the Hōjō clan regents. For a while Lady Masako, she who they called the nun-Shogun, was the real power behind the Hōjō leaders!
It is often the way of our people to come at power indirectly, behind screens and solemn pretense, layer upon layer.

But not Egawa Katashi, and not his son.

It is not only fitting that I take Egawa Noboru's youngest son as my consort when we return to the homeland, it is wise in several respects. He is healthy, intelligent, of good character—not surprising, he comes of very good stock on both sides, his mother is an excellent person—and it will cement his family's place as a pillar of the Throne in years to come. And if he is rather young . . . well, so were my father and grandmother when they wed. The link of blood between our generations still balances on the sword's edge.
Giri, neh?
The first duty we owe the Ancestors is to give them descendants.

“Or even worse, we tend to assume that our superiors' thinking is correct simply
because
they are superiors,” she said, serious once more. “Do not let your loyal heart betray you so. I need your
wits
, General-san. If you think I am in error, you are
ordered
to tell me. In the appropriate manner, of course. The final decision must be mine, but you taught me much when I was a child; you were
Saisei Tennō
's most valued councilor and commander, a living sword in his hand. A sword forged of will and intellect. So you will be to me, and your sons after you to my heir.”

“I beg the Heavenly Sovereign Majesty's pardon for my excessive humility,” he said—and she caught the twinkle in his eye and smiled slightly.

“Excellent. To business,” she said.

She leaned over the table and traced the path across the Pacific and back with her
tessen
war-fan, a loop to the south westbound and then north again for the return with the prevailing winds, a pattern like the hands of a gigantic clock.

“The Montivallan ship made most excellent time. Forty-four days sailing, very fast indeed; and its very presence and size bore witness to the messages I sent with Grand Steward Koyama.”

And this means I need not be the first to bear Mother and my little sisters the news of Father's death . . . and that our brother Yoshihito is truly and finally lost. Is this an evasion of duty? No, I do not think so. For negotiating the details of the alliance here is of the very greatest importance. When I bear Father's ashes home, we may grieve together; but I will come with the Grasscutter Sword reborn to be a terror to our enemies, and a fleet and an army to free our people of the terror that has haunted them since the Change. Father considered those things a good bargain for his life, and so must I. As it would be for mine.

The commander of the Imperial Guard ducked his head.
“Hai, Heika,”
he said. A hesitation, and then: “You have full confidence in the Grand Steward, of course.”

That was a question disguised as a statement; evidently Egawa was taking her instructions to heart. The two men—the most important in the Empire's government—had been quiet rivals for some time. They had never let it impede their efficiency, but it was there. One thing that had divided them was their attitudes towards this expedition; Koyama Akira had gone along reluctantly, only half-convinced at most by her father's visions. He was older and more conservative, and though he had been a small child at the Change, at times he still clung to the outmoded mechanistic ways of thought of the ancients.

“I have full confidence in him now,” she said dryly, glancing aside and sipping.

Egawa glanced aside as well. “I have rarely seen a man so chastened as he was when the Majesty showed him the Grasscutter Sword,” he said, carefully keeping any satisfaction out of his tone, since it would be known just the same.

“I have entrusted him with great authority,” she said, just as carefully keeping warning out of hers for the same reasons.

Koyama was also a valued servant, who now
was
chastened—he had been struck dumb with awe and trembled with remorse, in fact—and she had no intention of wasting his talents. Among her people bowing the forehead to the ground was a standard formal courtesy to the Throne, but she had seldom seen it performed as sincerely as the Grand Steward had done when she drew the Grasscutter and the steel had lit with the supernal fire at its heart. Together with her mother he would be ruling Japan in her absence, both at the head of the
Dajō-Kan
, the Council of State.

Which I intend to keep quite separate from the military commands. I trust Egawa, but there is still prudence, and there is still the matter of not setting bad precedents. Father taught me that institutions must be built for average people to use and use safely and well. If they cannot function without extraordinary talent and virtue at their head, then they are failures.

“And he certainly organized matters well and quickly with regard to the party that returned with the Montivallan ship,” she said, and Egawa nodded. “And now we will have our own transport once more, without having to deplete the Navy further . . . though I do miss Captain Ishikawa.”

“Yes, Majesty. Ishikawa-san is a brilliant ship commander, probably our best, but the Navy officers who the Grand Steward dispatched are very competent men, and have already fully familiarized themselves with the new ship. It is somewhat different from our designs, but of comparable performance; they are particularly enthusiastic about the quality of the single-trunk large masts and spars used on the new vessel.”

“The
Arī no Okurimono
,” she said; that meant
Gift of the Ally
, a rather unconventional name for a ship in their terminology.

He frowned; the ship was in fact a gift, from Princess Órlaith personally, a near-duplicate of the
Tarshish Queen
they had sailed on to seek the Grasscutter Sword. It was closely similar to the largest class in the Imperial Navy, much like the
Red Dragon
that had borne them here. Egawa was
ruthlessly willing to wring every advantage possible from the alliance with Montival, but he also resented the degree of dependence it implied. His father Egawa Katashi had still been in the womb when
his
father had driven his flying machine into the side of an American warship off Okinawa a century ago, in the last doomed effort to hold back the overwhelming might of the invaders by raw willingness to die. That memory was cherished in his family.

“Remember what I said when we first saw Montival's strength, General.”

He did, and his face lightened at the thought: she had said that it was good to have powerful friends . . . and even better to
be
a powerful friend, which they would be someday once more. When the
jinnikukaburi
menace was removed, their people could grow. The alliance they made now would provide essential shelter for that growth at first, but in the end it would tower to the sky.

“We will lay the foundations strongly; on them our descendants will build,” she said. “One day the Montivallans will be glad indeed to have earned our lasting goodwill. Then our alliance with them will be an alliance of equals, a steel bond of peace throughout the Pacific, and will greatly advance the Empire's interests.”

He cleared his throat and continued:

“The logistics will be very tricky. There are ample troops and ample supplies, which is a most pleasant change! But they are here on this side of the ocean; in the Empire we have neither and the one is useless without the other. Shipping will be the bottleneck, and assigning priorities essential.”

She made a gesture of agreement. Did you send a hull full of troops first . . . or were shiploads of dried noodles more important, to have a reserve of food available when they landed? Her people remembered the Great Pacific War of a century ago, when utter valor and blood and suffering poured out in oceans had not sufficed for victory; the warrior spirit was crucially important, but spirits needed bodies to inhabit and bodies needed food and weapons to fight. A few cargos of grain would enable
them to mobilize more of their own people as well, if they did not need to fear famine after taking too many strong backs and skilled hands from the paddies and workshops. Every shipyard in Montival was working triple shifts now, and she had ordered the same at home regardless of longer-term effects, but it would take time.

He shook his head. “I am disturbed that all resources are not being dedicated to the point of main effort. If you try to be strong everywhere, you are weak everywhere; if you try to do everything that is desirable, you accomplish nothing that is important.”

Reiko nodded. “In the abstract, General, your logic is excellent, undeniable. But the additional resources we have secured are our
ally's
troops, and our
ally's
supplies and for the most part our
ally's
ships. Furthermore—”

Her fan made a graceful looping gesture over the Grasscutter Sword lying on the mat beside her, so quiet and still . . . and to the inner eye that could see, like the spirits of Air and Fire, a torrent of the living Sun locked in steel.

“The storm I raised did more than shatter the
jinnikukaburi
squadron. It sent Prince John, the High Queen's son, to only-the-
kami
-know-where, not to mention a major Montivallan warship with hundreds of her loyal troops aboard. Consider that governments are made of human beings, not the passionless thinking machines of the ancients, and try to see it from her point of view. A point of view which we have
no choice
but to take into consideration, since she will be ruler here for another four years. And while the Crown Princess and I are close comrades who share a loss, and we are convinced that our nations must stand united in this war, it is still
her
brother and
her
troops as well. Our interests are well aligned for the most part, but not identical.”

He snorted, recognizing the point but obviously wishing he didn't have to.
“Hai, Heika.”

Then for a single moment he grinned like a shark.

“Whenever my frustrations grip me, I think of the surprise the
jinnikukaburi
raiders will encounter when the first squadron of Montivallan frigates meets them in our waters. Remember how the
Stormrider
pounded
one to burning fragments in the Bay? I would prefer that we had such ships ourselves, but this is an acceptable second-best.”

She nodded. “That is indeed a happy thought. But our allies cannot station them there forever; they have their own raiders to guard against here, if not so many and so dangerous, and the seas are large and ships relatively few. We must strike the enemy a heavy blow on their own ground—and this is not simply a contention of nations, so we cannot expect the minions of the
kangshinmu
kings and the evil
akuma
they serve to act rationally when faced with superior force. They care little for the welfare of their kingdom, and nothing at all for the sufferings of its ordinary people.”

“
Many
heavy blows, then, Majesty.”

The prospect didn't seem to displease him. He inclined his head.