The Initiate Brother Duology (112 page)

Kitsura gave a small laugh. “Certainly not. There were, however, several lovely young women who frequented the Governor’s Palace in Seh. There is no shortage of possibilities. Do you think it was because Lord Komawara’s views were thought to be so peculiar?”

Okara shrugged again. “Perhaps.”

“Huh,” Kitsura touched her fingers to her chin in contemplation that looked almost like prayer. “All the other men I am aware of are smitten with Nishi-sum….” The young woman sat up. “You don’t think it was Nishima-sum, do you? She certainly said nothing to me.”

“I do not know, Kitsu-sum. I only mention it as a possibility. I know nothing for certain.”

Kitsura rubbed her hands together, imitating a character in a play. “I must find some way to have Nishi-sum tell me,” Kitsura said, obviously already plotting. “Poor Lord Komawara. My lovely cousin will break ten thousand hearts before she settles.”

“I must say,” Lady Okara spoke sharply, “this rivalry between yourself and Lady Nishima is something you will both regret.”

Kitsura stared dumbly. She had never heard Lady Okara say anything that was not entirely pleasant. What rivalry? she thought. With my dearest cousin?

*   *   *

Nishima lay in her cabin awash in the moonlight filtering through the open window. She had changed out of the elaborate robes she had worn against the cool evening and a maid had laid out her bedding. Although Nishima had been able to participate in the viewing with some focus, this had suddenly disappeared and she had excused herself before the others guessed the turmoil that possessed her.

It had been several days since Nishima had spoken to Shuyun, had not even seen him except once at a distance. The monk was avoiding her, there was no doubt, and this caused her great anxiety.

In a sense Nishima felt she was engaged in a struggle for this young man’s spirit—a lifetime of Botahist training and doctrine on one side and whatever charms Lady Nishima had to offer on the other. And the longer he was away from her the more likely it became that training and comfortable habit would be victorious. Even now she was certain the monks had won their pupil back, even if they did not know that they were in danger of losing him.

Nishima was surprised at how little guilt she felt from playing the temptress—drawing the devoted away from the path of the spirit. It made her question her own goodness. Certainly nothing could be more improper than this affair she was engaged in, yet her heart did not care and it was her heart that had taken control.

The pain she felt at this thought was almost physical, so deep inside that she could not find its center. For some time she lay in this state and then forced herself to follow one of the several exercises that Brother Satake had taught to force her spirit away from such turmoil. And this finally brought a fitful sleep.

A stair creaking brought the young woman awake as surely as the sound of someone entering one’s room. After the noise of the telltale stair tread Nishima heard nothing at all and knew that the only person who could move that silently was Shuyun. She sat up, wrapping the quilt around her, every sense alert, but there was no other sound and her door did not ease open as she hoped.

For several minutes the young woman sat, struggling with her fears and desires. Then the need to know what transpired in the heart of this young monk won out and she almost jumped up, throwing a robe over her thin sleeping garment, forgetting a sash.

She opened her door a crack and watched the corridor and the stairs that led to the deck, dimly lit by a shaded, bronze lamp: nothing stirred. Though she did not have the skill of Shuyun, Nishima did have Brother Satake’s training and her motions exhibited the harmony of movement and balance that allowed the Botahist trained to move with almost no sound.

At Shuyun’s door she paused to listen, but when she heard nothing she pushed it open and stepped quickly out of the light of the corridor. Shuyun sat up in the bedding spread over the straw mats, the moon lighting the planes of his cheek and brow.

“Lady Nishima?”

His voice was a whisper, but even so it carried tones of formality and distance. Nishima felt her heart sink. A pace from the bed she knelt and found she could not speak.

“Lady Nishima, is something wrong?” Shuyun asked.

Distance, words as cool as the spring river.
I cannot win him with weakness, she thought, I must be strong. I must find the aspects of myself that drew him before.

Despite her resolve her voice was small and shook slightly. “I had not seen you in some time, Shuyun-sum….” Words ceased there and finally she could only shrug and fight tears. It was as she had feared—habit and training and doctrine had argued in her absence. What could she do now?

Shuyun stared at her and though it may have been merely a trick of the
light, his face, normally devoid of emotion, seemed to mirror her own confusion and sadness.

“I do not understand the ways of the heart, Lady Nishima,” he said quietly, his voice utterly calm.

Shaking her head, Nishima heard herself whisper, “No one does.” A second of silence and then with difficulty, “I only know that my heart is breaking.”

Shuyun’s lack of experience would no longer stop him from offering comfort to a woman whose heart was breaking. Nishima felt his arms encircle her and she pulled him close, burying her face in his bare shoulder. Neither moved for some time, as though afraid motion or words would somehow signal acceptance of the changes they both sensed coming.

“I have a memory from my childhood,” Nishima whispered, “perhaps my earliest memory. I was crying, I can’t remember why, and my mother held me as you do now.”

“My first memory is singing a child’s chant with my fellow neophytes. I have no memory of my family.”

“Were you that young, then, when you came to the Brothers?”

Shuyun shook his head. “When you are very young, the teachers have you perform exercises where you imagine your mother’s face changing—from round to sharp, or long to round. Soon you can no longer remember her true appearance. It is the first lesson that we live in the illusion.”

“It seems a terrible thing to do to a child,” Nishima whispered.

“Perhaps.” Shuyun put his mouth close to her ear. “There is something you must know.” Pulling away slowly, he held up a hand. “Place your palm against mine.”

Nishima did so.

“Push.”

Beginning slowly Nishima applied pressure, controlling her breathing, feeling the slight tingle of “inner force” through her hand. Shuyun stared at her with great earnestness all the while. Suddenly Nishima found her hand being forced back, not quickly but steadily. Only when this steady pressure had stopped pushing her back did Nishima realize that there was moonlight falling between Shuyun’s hand and her own. She faltered and withdrew her hand, staring openly.

“Brother Satake did not tell me of this,” Nishima whispered. “I…would not have thought it possible.”

Shuyun shook his head. “There is no record of such a thing being done before,” Shuyun said, his voice so filled with awe that Nishima found herself moving away as though the monk was suddenly something to be wary of.

“Are you the Teacher, then?” she whispered.

Shuyun shook his head, almost a tremor, and shrugged, looking down at his hands. “I do not know. Certainly this confusion I feel is not the Enlightenment the Brothers describe.” He met Nishima’s gaze and she felt he asked her, silently, to reach out to him, and despite her discomfort and questions about the nature of this man she could not refuse.

Gently, Nishima pulled the quilt aside and slipped into the bed beside Shuyun. They lay in the moonlight, close, in each other’s arms—too much to be said, neither able to find words to begin.

The sounds of the boat swaying and rocking through the waters were all around them and the moonlight arced slowly across the cabin. The entire effect was one of strangeness—a room that moved and hissed and burbled, cool pure light illuminating the cabin, bright enough to cast shadows. It was as though they had been transported to some other realm where the laws and forces of nature were unknown.

Nishima felt Shuyun’s finger trace the shape of her ear, his touch so light. Down the curve of her neck and she realized she was holding her breath. Out along her shoulder, pulling her robe back. She felt the soft silk slide across her breast and then the soft warmth of Shuyun’s skin against her own.

Brave heart,
Nishima thought,
what beauty we have found.

*   *   *

Lord Shonto Shokan awoke in a small gray room, a thin line of daylight finding its way through a crack in the window shutter. Early, he thought, it must be very early. The furs he slept under kept him warm, but the stone walls drew all the heat out of the air and the lord’s breath was visible. He rolled over again and was startled by pain in his back and neck. Carrying a load, dweller style, had asked much of him.

A night’s sleep uninterrupted by the cold: Shokan had to admit that he was not meant to live high in the mountains. He could not bear the cold.

Unwilling to face the air in the room and unable to think of a pressing reason to rise, Shokan lay in his furs wondering about the people who had found him—rescued him was perhaps more accurate.

In some ways they were not unlike the people of Wa, the lowlanders. The mountain dwellers’ dress and habits differed, there was no question, but
there was a familiar focus of duty among these people which reminded Shokan of the retainers on the Shonto fief.

There appeared to be no aristocracy here, though the elders were accorded a level of respect that was impressive. But even their lives did not compare with that of a pampered member of Wa’s peerage—his life, for instance.

If Shokan were to characterize the greatest difference between the mountain dwellers and his own people, it was in the dwellers’ seemingly consistent ability to find delight in virtually everything. More than innocence, this was a quality of joy and spontaneity that was seldom seen in the Empire of Wa—a world smothered with rigidly structured etiquette, formality, and ceremony. Even his stepsister, Nishima, who flouted the rules of her station almost without regard—and with impressive impunity!— did not share the spirit he witnessed in the dwellers. He realized he was somewhat jealous.

The door opened a crack and Shokan was not sure whose face appeared in the dark hall beyond. The door was pushed open by a foot and Quinta-la appeared. In her hands she bore a covered wooden tray and the smell of food permeated the cold air. She set this on what appeared to be a low, round stool and went directly to the window, speaking as she went. There was no way to be certain, but Shokan had the distinct impression that this young woman was scolding him. Unfastening the latches she flung the shutters open and sunshine flooded the room, warm sunshine, and the young lord was not sure that the outside air was not warmer also.

Quinta-la squatted down on her heels and gestured to the food and smiled.

Shokan said the word he hoped meant “eat” and received a delighted smile and a torrent of dweller language, not a single word of which he recognized.

When he had eaten, every bite watched with apparent interest, Quinta-la rose and gestured to the door, speaking as she did so.

“I would love to stroll in the sunshine in your lovely company, Quinta-la,” Shokan responded, “but it is improper for you to be here and certainly very improper that I should dress in your presence, so….” He waved her out, smiling so that she would not take offense, and when this did not work he rose, wrapped in a fur, and guided her out the door which caused much laughter, but then many things he did made her laugh.

Dressing quickly the lord went out into the hall where Quinta-la crouched down against the wall.

“Ketah,”
she said and jumped up, waving down the corridor. She walked beside him, her pace forcing Shokan to hurry, yet, except for the speed at which she walked, she showed little sign of being rushed. She smiled at Shokan when he looked at her and seemed to be walking quickly out of excitement or perhaps sheer pleasure, but not because there was pressure to be somewhere.

They left the building by a very substantial wooden door and crossed a stone courtyard to ascend a set of narrow stairs. In the shade between the building and the high wall the air was frigid and occasional patches of ice appeared on the stone treads.

As they reached the top of the stairs, and another of what seemed to be an endless number of courtyards and terraces, a shout went up and in seconds a swarm of children appeared, converging from all directions. Round faced, with perfect, white smiles they were a contrast to the quiet, decorous children Shokan was used to encountering. They ran in circles around the stranger and his tiny guide or pranced along beside Quinta-la tagging on to her hands and clothing, laughing and jabbering and letting go the occasional shriek, apparently for sheer joy.

They crossed yet another stone terrace toward a wide set of steps, just high enough that Shokan could not see what lay at the next level. As they came closer to the stairs, the children became more subdued and then fell completely silent. A few at a time they began to drop behind so that the adults reached the foot of the stairs alone. There Quinta-la stopped also, her face uncommonly serious.

Shokan looked back and the children stood watching him, big eyes unreadable to his outsider perception, their smiles gone. Quinta-la nodded, the strange gesture of the head falling forward then jerking up. Waving her hand at the steps, she tried a reassuring smile though it was so forced it did anything but reassure.

I have no sword, Shokan thought. He had left it in his chambers out of respect and trust for the people who had saved him, for they did not carry swords in their own village. It is a groundless fear, he told himself, a thought without honor. The dwellers are not treacherous.

As there seemed to be little choice, he bowed and turned up the stairs, watched intently by his strangely mute audience.

Though he was not certain what he had been expecting, what greeted him at the top of the stairs did not fulfill those expectations. A round terrace
surrounded by a waist-high stone wall. In its center a stunted tree lifted twisted branches against the background of white mountains and the broad valley.