Cold Light Melting - I
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: T
Genre: introspective?
Warnings: n/a
AU/Canon: slightly AU.
Pairing/Characters: most of the Kou family, a few OCs.
Words: 3628
Prompt: June 2009 - still waters run deep (1500 word min.)
Previous Installments:
+ Prelude: A Kinder Season
Notes: Spoilers up to book 14, but I ignore some of the stuff that happened, or at least don't acknowledge it - maybe that makes this slightly AU. We're pretending the stuff at the very end didn't happen.
........................................
There were few things Reishin loathed as much as clan meetings. Kurou was not normally on that list, though today his brother's smiles and booming laughter made his teeth grind. He spoke to each of the prefectural heads when they came through the doors, framed by the arch that led from the entry chamber to the area set with round tables, chairs. At the head of the room, on a raised platform with its own rectangular table and high-backed, carved seats, Reishin sat at his place in the center, leaning into the hard back of his chair, and watched his brother's back while the guests he'd already welcomed at the door inched toward the dais, bowed low to pay their respects to their clan head, then hurried to their places.
'Meeting' was hardly the word for it. 'Picnic' was closer, 'banquet' being too good for their guest list. He recognized a few of the faces hidden behind their sleeves when they came to him - Shin, family head in the prefecture of the same name; Shoushi, matriarch of the Shun branch; an old man said he hailed from Yuan reminded Reishin so much of Shou Taishi he felt sick to his stomach.
He looked down at his tea, but he'd blended it himself; it was untainted. The silver cup was worked into trefoil shapes on the outside, etched with cherry blossoms inside, at the bottom, shimmering with ceramic paint so it appeared real flowers gathered at the bottom. Grated orange peel steeped with the tea leaves, smelling fresh and sweet, and a plate of tangerine wedges decorated the plain black tray by the silver teapot, their flesh almost red, cut from the first harvest of the season. The flower shape at the center of the dish glittered with sugar. He choose a piece from the unadorned circle at the edge and squeezed juice into his cup, sipped, licked his lips. The antechamber doors were being pushed closed, and Kurou was walking toward the table; a low murmur, many voices chattering, laughing, whispering, filled the room and made it small.
Kurou's wife returned to the table first. She murmured something he didn't listen to, took the seat to his left; Hakuyuu offered his perfunctory bow, hands tucked into his gold-trimmed sleeves, and took his seat a chair away, where he would sit at his father's right hand. Only Sera smiled, and seemed undaunted when he only lifted his eyebrow. She wore her hair in loops like Shuurei, tied in front by red silk ribbons, but the rest was rolled at the back of her head in a fan that reminded him of Yuri's favorite formal style, and the pins secured in the loop and hanging down were once his wife's - gold blossom shapes with amethyst hearts, and pale jade dangles. He remembered giving them to her after a new year's dinner a long time ago.
I've been teaching her Aunt Gyokuka's art, she'd said to him in a letter, more than a month ago. If you're going to sit there and ruminate on your own failures, at least spend some time attending to her skill. It'll be good for you.
Hah. Good for who?
"No news from the capitol," Kurou said, at his back, and his red robes swept into sight when he sat at Reishin's right hand and draped his sleeves over the arms of his chair. His mouth was set in its perpetual line, slightly turned down. "This will be the first they've heard of Shouka's ascension."
Reishin let the corner of his mouth curl up. His fan remained on the white tablecloth, the slats slightly spread to reveal their carvings. "We should break it to them gently."
Kurou's eyes slid toward him, though his face stayed front. "Brother--"
"No complaints." Reishin pushed his chair back and stood. The scrape echoed, and the talking below, the scattered laughter, fragmented and fell silent when faces turned to the dais, fans and eyes lowering. He shook his sleeves out, waited until true quiet fell over the crowd, swept his eyes across the sea of variegated shades of red and brown and the glitter of hair sticks and combs. "Welcome, friends. I trust this meeting finds you all in good fortune." He smiled, and saw Lady Shoushi's fan twitch up, and a man whose name he didn't care to learn glanced at a companion and whispered something. "You are present today to celebrate the ascension of my eldest brother, Shouka, to the seat of clan head. Your blessings will be forwarded to him through appropriate channels."
Silence.
Again Kurou said Brother, a whisper hissed through his teeth.
"An heir has not yet been chosen. Opinions on this matter may be directed to me, or kept quiet." Reishin let his smile fade and turned his gaze to one of Hakuyuu's most vocal supporters, a man from their own prefecture, whose face he recalled only faintly from a social call to his father. He couldn't remember his name - only that he was first on the list of men investigated for their parents' murder. How had he gotten free of that charge? "All other clan matters will be announced after luncheon. Enjoy yourselves."
Reishin sat down again, and the creak of the wood seemed to echo. Several of the faces turned to him blinked, one flinched back at the sound, and after a count of ten their whispers flowed together like a river again, white noise he ignored as he picked his tea up again, swirled it once, and sipped.
"What happened to 'breaking it gently?'" Kurou's wife murmured. Her lacquered nails clicked on the lion's paw arm of her chair, gleaming red.
He watched bits of tea leaf settle at the bottom of his cup. "If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."
Her sharp sigh, more an exclamation, made his sleeve flutter. "Insensitive clod." It was said under her breath.
Hardly worth his time. Houju would have done better - would have taken that very seat, as a matter of fact.
"It would be better practice to show some concern for their sensibilities," Kurou said, his wife's common courtesy at the very least sneaking in just after, drawing a sigh. "If you didn't want to come--"
"Why bother?" Reishin pushed his mug onto the table again. Only the dregs remained - an apt metaphor. He spread his fan in lieu of holding a cup to his lips and let his gaze drift across the room again, noting other individuals he knew, or was familiar with. Yuri would have known better; she dealt with these men and women in his name, did his work - she would have known which to suspect as the source of the most recent attempt on his life. "I'm asking myself the same question," he said, and went on only when his brother opened his mouth to respond. "It would be equally offending to their sensibilities were I to ignore them while visiting, isn't that so?"
"Father, you said you didn't like how indirect everyone is." Sera leaned forward to peer around her mother, a flat, round fan held up to shield her face from their audience. The white silk was painted with a scene from one of the classics, a brush painting of a celestial maiden among waving grasses with her robe of feathers.
Kurou sighed again, subtle, almost silent. To their right, behind a folding screen, a pair of double doors opened to admit a line of servants with square, polished black trays: a woman carrying a soup tureen with both arms stretched out to accommodate it and trembling slightly; behind her, a young man carrying an arrangement of dumplings and rice cakes in pink and white; a girl slightly older than Sera appeared behind him, her head only shoulder-high, carrying a silver teapot with heavy silk mitts. Her hair bounced in two tails over each ear, and she alone was in white, the others in layers of pale and dark pink. The dais was served first, and while their trays were arranged, other servants came out in a long line, weaving between the tables to serve the others. Conversations started again, and there was laughter, calls to the servers, the clink of ivory chopsticks on porcelain dishes. The soup tureen was painted with wild roses and green grass, a hummingbird in vivid blue and green at the center. Silver scrolls rolled outward like gusts of painted wind.
His poor brother. To think, he'd said this event might be enjoyable. "I'll be leaving before the discussion starts," Reishin said.
He couldn't tell if Kurou was relieved or not by the cant of his head or the angle of his look; he simply nodded, and picked up his sticks, though Reishin hadn't lifted his own utensils yet.
The main course was beef marinated and baked in a clay pot overnight, spiced with ginger, garlic, and chile, accompanied by rice sprinkled with black and white roasted sesame and simmered lotus root with green onions. The quality left nothing to be desired, though the lotus root was a bit salty for his taste and he only picked at it until their audience appeared truly absorbed in their chatter. His agents mingled with them, one dressed as a servant, the other standing in for a lordling from a northern prefecture. He leaned over, told his brother he would be leaving, and left the table. The little girl who brought their tea in hurried to his side, asked if he needed anything, and Reishin said he was going outside for a few moments of peace; he would be right back.
Outside, the morning haze had burned off, leaving the sky starkly blue, and the grounds of their city mansion bright white, green, and yellow. The grass was trimmed down, the hydrangea carefully planted along the limestone pathway; another servant met him, and then another, and he sent each off on a false errand until he reached the gates. His carriage waited, the horses still harnessed, the driver at the ready.
It was the quiet ride home that reminded him most of the capitol; the jolt of the carriage wheels over a rock, the rush of wind past the window. The gathering of fools in the banquet hall was more typical of court gatherings, featuring the same selection of minor personages and the bright silks and ornamentation they wore to offset their insignificance - only the names were different, the faces scarcely so. Perhaps he would find a Houju among their number, or a limp to remind him of Yuushun. Such replacements would be undeniably provincial.
Perhaps he was lucky - there was nobody in Kou Province to remind him how far away they were - nobody to highlight their absence. Only his memory of Shuurei's ehru music, and Houju's sarcastic commentary when they sat outside the Censorate building to listen.
*
The hours passed more slowly than Reishin thought they would with the house empty. Yellow crept eastward from the setting sun on the edge of the sacred mountains to the west, riming wispy clouds with gold, and magenta meandered to meet it and clash. His windows were opened to the garden and he sat on the hard wooden seat by the bowl shape of his biwa propped on the side, leaned against the frame, heard it creak open a few inches more and disturb the hydrangea stalks crowded against the pavilion. Some were pink like the sky, others variegated shades of blue and violet, domes of little flowers as wide as his hand. A willow cast its curtain between himself and the grounds, veiled him from the eyes of the servants watering flower beds with wooden buckets on bars across their backs. If he listened, he could hear the low murmur of their voices and the slide of the brook between his building and the one Kurou used.
If he tried, he thought the scent of wormwood lingered too, caught in the curtains. They'd aired his rooms out and changed everything - the linens, the rugs, even the furniture. Reishin had displaced Kurou again for most of a day and night - he didn't breathe much of the poisoned incense, just a little, just enough to feel dizzy and sick. The person responsible had not been found. He sent to the capitol for his own servants, and that was that.
A maid came in to ask if he would eat. Reishin sent her away and picked up his biwa. The opening notes of Water Under the Bridge came to him, too playful, the sort of thing one performed for a child, and he remembered playing it once - only once - for Houju. Fitting for someone like you, he'd said-- shallow, bouncing and breaking at the smallest hindrance.
Reishin couldn't remember his response, no matter how many times he played those two measures. It must have involved throwing something.
His hands would not be so quick now.
There was noise near the front of the house; his brother and the family were returning, perhaps. Someone came in to light his lamps, and he flattened his hands over the strings to silence them until the door opened and closed for the second time and the child's soft footsteps left his range of hearing. Heavier tread neared in the corridor outside, and his heart pounded, tried to jump into his throat, but it passed. The song of a mockingbird replaced it after a count of ten deep breaths. His fingers throbbed in time with his heart.
They were red; they'd blister. The tip of his fourth finger was already swelling, the skin turning white, and he wondered-- how long since he played the biwa like this - every day, every night? Yuri had a soft touch. He'd fallen into the habit of sleeping to her playing instead, leaning, his back to hers, with a lock of her golden hair twisted around his fingers. He would come home with the sunset, find her waiting in the garden, let her remove his hat and take his hair down, comb it with her fingers. His hair never tangled when she took care of it. The ends never split. She would gather it in her slender hands and lean forward, plant a kiss to the back of his neck. If she stayed in the capitol as she said she would--
His hair was already growing out. It was long enough to curl beneath his elbows when he let it loose, longer than strictly decent for the brother of the clan head. Of course, nobody in the province would care, and if the throne tried to enforce that ridiculous rule he would ride back to the capitol and take the idiot emperor by his ear until he repealed the order, but - somehow she always managed to come home at the right time of year to take care of it.
Would Shouka be able to leave the capitol? Or would Yuri continue to take care of clan business, and travel back to Reishin?
He put the biwa down and reached backward to the table by his bed. A short knife was sheathed there, and beside it, an oblong plate of wood thicker than his hand and a little longer. The left side was already shaved down, though it wasn't yet smooth.
Normally he started these with an image in mind: affected by the heat, angry at the world. He'd memorized the planes of the face it would cover - with his eyes, with his hands. He always carved the lips just right, if he did say so himself, though wood could never match the pliancy of the real shape, nor its softness. Once he'd painted those lips, the real ones, with cherry juice, on a winter night so harsh they could not leave the department to go home and with too much sake in his blood.
It didn't happen often. Reishin couldn't begin to count the number of people who wanted him dead. The scroll would unroll forever. He only drank with one person, and that person was not, damn his luck, about to show his ugly face.
He drew the blade and carved a thin shaving from the wood. It fluttered to the floor, and another after it, and another. A breeze cooled his forehead and sent them whispering across the floor to gather around the folds of the curtains tied back from the alcove ensconcing his bed.
The nights were still warm for autumn, but the leaves would brown and fall soon enough.
*
"If you're here about the speech," Reishin said when Kurou's frame darkened his doorway the following morning, "I'm not interested."
His brother stepped inside and closed the door. Reishin arranged the skirt of his robe to cover his legs, pulled his bedsheets over, a porcelain cup in one hand. Thin gold lines were painted along the lip, shaped like petals, and it gleamed in the lamplight. His curtains were still drawn, and he'd forbidden the women from opening them when they came in carrying the robes he requested. Those were draped on their stand in the far corner beside the door to the bath, shades of blue layered over yellow, and not a smudge of red in sight. Kurou ruined his attempt to purge the room with his usual dull maroon robe and the red of the cap covering his hair.
Why was it, Reishin had often wondered at court, that members of the clans insisted on flaunting their chains in the color of their robes, or their hats, or any number of tasteless accessories - handkerchiefs, pointed shoes, fans? Why restrict one's wardrobe? Red didn't compliment his brother's pallor, and it only highlighted Shuurei's resemblance to her mother when he saw her wearing it; pink suited her better, though only barely. Green or deep purple would be more fitting.
"I heard your name uttered in conjunction with the words 'graceless' and 'narcissistic,' quite a few times, but the effect was otherwise unremarkable," Kurou said, gathering his sleeve with one hand and holding a folded piece of paper between the fingers of the other. "They expect you to be rude."
Reishin sipped his tea. The sweet flavor soured on his tongue. "My agents will have noted their names and rankings."
His brother snorted, and brought the note, tossing it onto the covers when Reishin made no motion to take it. "If you're going to stay, you should try to be more personable."
He looked into the yellow of his tea, lifted his brow. "I'm perfectly pleasant."
Kurou looked at the green glow of the curtains. "Yuri said you would take her role as Sera's teacher. Is that true?"
"I never said anything about that."
His brother's eyes slid to watch him, though his face was still turned away. "Treat her kindly."
Reishin frowned. "I told you--"
"She also mentioned a midwinter trip to the house to check on you."
His lips pressed together. Three months. He would be an old man by then. "I don't need to be checked up on."
Kurou sighed, and his eyes flicked away. It always sounded the same - a deep breath, the sort that reached to the diaphragm, a gravely undertone of the voice, and he let it go like a weight had been dropped on his chest, like a horse fell on him and forced the air out. "I told her not to worry, but she'll come anyway." He turned his back on Reishin and walked toward the door. "I doubt Shouka will bother with clan business. It'll be the same as always."
Another frown creased his face, and his eyes narrowed, but his brother left, closed the door, and it was too early yet to hear anything but the chirping of a few birds and his receding footsteps. The tea smelled green like grass, and he lifted it to his lips again to see if it would taste better now Kurou was gone. Reishin unfolded the paper with his other hand.
Shou and Shun are loyal. The incense has been traced to the Yellows, a store on the border with Shun prefecture.
Well enough. The only others Reishin knew of to make use of medicinal incense on a regular basis were the nobles of Sa Province, and the business there had taken a sharp downturn since his niece held the governorship.
A list of names followed, and a list of insults. A timetable was given for his request of tropical wood; the river flowing south, out of Saiunkoku, was running low and grounding trade vessels.
There is Hyou activity near the capitol. Three mysterious deaths.
Reishin leaned down to place his cup on the floor by his bed and took the note to his writing desk. His hair slid over his shoulders to curl on the table when he bent over to open his writing box, wet his brush, and compose his reply. Hyou activity at the capitol meant a threat to his niece, his brother - possibly to himself, but certainly anybody close to their target was fair game.
That would have to be taken care of. Immediately.
.
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: T
Genre: introspective?
Warnings: n/a
AU/Canon: slightly AU.
Pairing/Characters: most of the Kou family, a few OCs.
Words: 3628
Prompt: June 2009 - still waters run deep (1500 word min.)
Previous Installments:
+ Prelude: A Kinder Season
Notes: Spoilers up to book 14, but I ignore some of the stuff that happened, or at least don't acknowledge it - maybe that makes this slightly AU. We're pretending the stuff at the very end didn't happen.
........................................
There were few things Reishin loathed as much as clan meetings. Kurou was not normally on that list, though today his brother's smiles and booming laughter made his teeth grind. He spoke to each of the prefectural heads when they came through the doors, framed by the arch that led from the entry chamber to the area set with round tables, chairs. At the head of the room, on a raised platform with its own rectangular table and high-backed, carved seats, Reishin sat at his place in the center, leaning into the hard back of his chair, and watched his brother's back while the guests he'd already welcomed at the door inched toward the dais, bowed low to pay their respects to their clan head, then hurried to their places.
'Meeting' was hardly the word for it. 'Picnic' was closer, 'banquet' being too good for their guest list. He recognized a few of the faces hidden behind their sleeves when they came to him - Shin, family head in the prefecture of the same name; Shoushi, matriarch of the Shun branch; an old man said he hailed from Yuan reminded Reishin so much of Shou Taishi he felt sick to his stomach.
He looked down at his tea, but he'd blended it himself; it was untainted. The silver cup was worked into trefoil shapes on the outside, etched with cherry blossoms inside, at the bottom, shimmering with ceramic paint so it appeared real flowers gathered at the bottom. Grated orange peel steeped with the tea leaves, smelling fresh and sweet, and a plate of tangerine wedges decorated the plain black tray by the silver teapot, their flesh almost red, cut from the first harvest of the season. The flower shape at the center of the dish glittered with sugar. He choose a piece from the unadorned circle at the edge and squeezed juice into his cup, sipped, licked his lips. The antechamber doors were being pushed closed, and Kurou was walking toward the table; a low murmur, many voices chattering, laughing, whispering, filled the room and made it small.
Kurou's wife returned to the table first. She murmured something he didn't listen to, took the seat to his left; Hakuyuu offered his perfunctory bow, hands tucked into his gold-trimmed sleeves, and took his seat a chair away, where he would sit at his father's right hand. Only Sera smiled, and seemed undaunted when he only lifted his eyebrow. She wore her hair in loops like Shuurei, tied in front by red silk ribbons, but the rest was rolled at the back of her head in a fan that reminded him of Yuri's favorite formal style, and the pins secured in the loop and hanging down were once his wife's - gold blossom shapes with amethyst hearts, and pale jade dangles. He remembered giving them to her after a new year's dinner a long time ago.
I've been teaching her Aunt Gyokuka's art, she'd said to him in a letter, more than a month ago. If you're going to sit there and ruminate on your own failures, at least spend some time attending to her skill. It'll be good for you.
Hah. Good for who?
"No news from the capitol," Kurou said, at his back, and his red robes swept into sight when he sat at Reishin's right hand and draped his sleeves over the arms of his chair. His mouth was set in its perpetual line, slightly turned down. "This will be the first they've heard of Shouka's ascension."
Reishin let the corner of his mouth curl up. His fan remained on the white tablecloth, the slats slightly spread to reveal their carvings. "We should break it to them gently."
Kurou's eyes slid toward him, though his face stayed front. "Brother--"
"No complaints." Reishin pushed his chair back and stood. The scrape echoed, and the talking below, the scattered laughter, fragmented and fell silent when faces turned to the dais, fans and eyes lowering. He shook his sleeves out, waited until true quiet fell over the crowd, swept his eyes across the sea of variegated shades of red and brown and the glitter of hair sticks and combs. "Welcome, friends. I trust this meeting finds you all in good fortune." He smiled, and saw Lady Shoushi's fan twitch up, and a man whose name he didn't care to learn glanced at a companion and whispered something. "You are present today to celebrate the ascension of my eldest brother, Shouka, to the seat of clan head. Your blessings will be forwarded to him through appropriate channels."
Silence.
Again Kurou said Brother, a whisper hissed through his teeth.
"An heir has not yet been chosen. Opinions on this matter may be directed to me, or kept quiet." Reishin let his smile fade and turned his gaze to one of Hakuyuu's most vocal supporters, a man from their own prefecture, whose face he recalled only faintly from a social call to his father. He couldn't remember his name - only that he was first on the list of men investigated for their parents' murder. How had he gotten free of that charge? "All other clan matters will be announced after luncheon. Enjoy yourselves."
Reishin sat down again, and the creak of the wood seemed to echo. Several of the faces turned to him blinked, one flinched back at the sound, and after a count of ten their whispers flowed together like a river again, white noise he ignored as he picked his tea up again, swirled it once, and sipped.
"What happened to 'breaking it gently?'" Kurou's wife murmured. Her lacquered nails clicked on the lion's paw arm of her chair, gleaming red.
He watched bits of tea leaf settle at the bottom of his cup. "If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."
Her sharp sigh, more an exclamation, made his sleeve flutter. "Insensitive clod." It was said under her breath.
Hardly worth his time. Houju would have done better - would have taken that very seat, as a matter of fact.
"It would be better practice to show some concern for their sensibilities," Kurou said, his wife's common courtesy at the very least sneaking in just after, drawing a sigh. "If you didn't want to come--"
"Why bother?" Reishin pushed his mug onto the table again. Only the dregs remained - an apt metaphor. He spread his fan in lieu of holding a cup to his lips and let his gaze drift across the room again, noting other individuals he knew, or was familiar with. Yuri would have known better; she dealt with these men and women in his name, did his work - she would have known which to suspect as the source of the most recent attempt on his life. "I'm asking myself the same question," he said, and went on only when his brother opened his mouth to respond. "It would be equally offending to their sensibilities were I to ignore them while visiting, isn't that so?"
"Father, you said you didn't like how indirect everyone is." Sera leaned forward to peer around her mother, a flat, round fan held up to shield her face from their audience. The white silk was painted with a scene from one of the classics, a brush painting of a celestial maiden among waving grasses with her robe of feathers.
Kurou sighed again, subtle, almost silent. To their right, behind a folding screen, a pair of double doors opened to admit a line of servants with square, polished black trays: a woman carrying a soup tureen with both arms stretched out to accommodate it and trembling slightly; behind her, a young man carrying an arrangement of dumplings and rice cakes in pink and white; a girl slightly older than Sera appeared behind him, her head only shoulder-high, carrying a silver teapot with heavy silk mitts. Her hair bounced in two tails over each ear, and she alone was in white, the others in layers of pale and dark pink. The dais was served first, and while their trays were arranged, other servants came out in a long line, weaving between the tables to serve the others. Conversations started again, and there was laughter, calls to the servers, the clink of ivory chopsticks on porcelain dishes. The soup tureen was painted with wild roses and green grass, a hummingbird in vivid blue and green at the center. Silver scrolls rolled outward like gusts of painted wind.
His poor brother. To think, he'd said this event might be enjoyable. "I'll be leaving before the discussion starts," Reishin said.
He couldn't tell if Kurou was relieved or not by the cant of his head or the angle of his look; he simply nodded, and picked up his sticks, though Reishin hadn't lifted his own utensils yet.
The main course was beef marinated and baked in a clay pot overnight, spiced with ginger, garlic, and chile, accompanied by rice sprinkled with black and white roasted sesame and simmered lotus root with green onions. The quality left nothing to be desired, though the lotus root was a bit salty for his taste and he only picked at it until their audience appeared truly absorbed in their chatter. His agents mingled with them, one dressed as a servant, the other standing in for a lordling from a northern prefecture. He leaned over, told his brother he would be leaving, and left the table. The little girl who brought their tea in hurried to his side, asked if he needed anything, and Reishin said he was going outside for a few moments of peace; he would be right back.
Outside, the morning haze had burned off, leaving the sky starkly blue, and the grounds of their city mansion bright white, green, and yellow. The grass was trimmed down, the hydrangea carefully planted along the limestone pathway; another servant met him, and then another, and he sent each off on a false errand until he reached the gates. His carriage waited, the horses still harnessed, the driver at the ready.
It was the quiet ride home that reminded him most of the capitol; the jolt of the carriage wheels over a rock, the rush of wind past the window. The gathering of fools in the banquet hall was more typical of court gatherings, featuring the same selection of minor personages and the bright silks and ornamentation they wore to offset their insignificance - only the names were different, the faces scarcely so. Perhaps he would find a Houju among their number, or a limp to remind him of Yuushun. Such replacements would be undeniably provincial.
Perhaps he was lucky - there was nobody in Kou Province to remind him how far away they were - nobody to highlight their absence. Only his memory of Shuurei's ehru music, and Houju's sarcastic commentary when they sat outside the Censorate building to listen.
*
The hours passed more slowly than Reishin thought they would with the house empty. Yellow crept eastward from the setting sun on the edge of the sacred mountains to the west, riming wispy clouds with gold, and magenta meandered to meet it and clash. His windows were opened to the garden and he sat on the hard wooden seat by the bowl shape of his biwa propped on the side, leaned against the frame, heard it creak open a few inches more and disturb the hydrangea stalks crowded against the pavilion. Some were pink like the sky, others variegated shades of blue and violet, domes of little flowers as wide as his hand. A willow cast its curtain between himself and the grounds, veiled him from the eyes of the servants watering flower beds with wooden buckets on bars across their backs. If he listened, he could hear the low murmur of their voices and the slide of the brook between his building and the one Kurou used.
If he tried, he thought the scent of wormwood lingered too, caught in the curtains. They'd aired his rooms out and changed everything - the linens, the rugs, even the furniture. Reishin had displaced Kurou again for most of a day and night - he didn't breathe much of the poisoned incense, just a little, just enough to feel dizzy and sick. The person responsible had not been found. He sent to the capitol for his own servants, and that was that.
A maid came in to ask if he would eat. Reishin sent her away and picked up his biwa. The opening notes of Water Under the Bridge came to him, too playful, the sort of thing one performed for a child, and he remembered playing it once - only once - for Houju. Fitting for someone like you, he'd said-- shallow, bouncing and breaking at the smallest hindrance.
Reishin couldn't remember his response, no matter how many times he played those two measures. It must have involved throwing something.
His hands would not be so quick now.
There was noise near the front of the house; his brother and the family were returning, perhaps. Someone came in to light his lamps, and he flattened his hands over the strings to silence them until the door opened and closed for the second time and the child's soft footsteps left his range of hearing. Heavier tread neared in the corridor outside, and his heart pounded, tried to jump into his throat, but it passed. The song of a mockingbird replaced it after a count of ten deep breaths. His fingers throbbed in time with his heart.
They were red; they'd blister. The tip of his fourth finger was already swelling, the skin turning white, and he wondered-- how long since he played the biwa like this - every day, every night? Yuri had a soft touch. He'd fallen into the habit of sleeping to her playing instead, leaning, his back to hers, with a lock of her golden hair twisted around his fingers. He would come home with the sunset, find her waiting in the garden, let her remove his hat and take his hair down, comb it with her fingers. His hair never tangled when she took care of it. The ends never split. She would gather it in her slender hands and lean forward, plant a kiss to the back of his neck. If she stayed in the capitol as she said she would--
His hair was already growing out. It was long enough to curl beneath his elbows when he let it loose, longer than strictly decent for the brother of the clan head. Of course, nobody in the province would care, and if the throne tried to enforce that ridiculous rule he would ride back to the capitol and take the idiot emperor by his ear until he repealed the order, but - somehow she always managed to come home at the right time of year to take care of it.
Would Shouka be able to leave the capitol? Or would Yuri continue to take care of clan business, and travel back to Reishin?
He put the biwa down and reached backward to the table by his bed. A short knife was sheathed there, and beside it, an oblong plate of wood thicker than his hand and a little longer. The left side was already shaved down, though it wasn't yet smooth.
Normally he started these with an image in mind: affected by the heat, angry at the world. He'd memorized the planes of the face it would cover - with his eyes, with his hands. He always carved the lips just right, if he did say so himself, though wood could never match the pliancy of the real shape, nor its softness. Once he'd painted those lips, the real ones, with cherry juice, on a winter night so harsh they could not leave the department to go home and with too much sake in his blood.
It didn't happen often. Reishin couldn't begin to count the number of people who wanted him dead. The scroll would unroll forever. He only drank with one person, and that person was not, damn his luck, about to show his ugly face.
He drew the blade and carved a thin shaving from the wood. It fluttered to the floor, and another after it, and another. A breeze cooled his forehead and sent them whispering across the floor to gather around the folds of the curtains tied back from the alcove ensconcing his bed.
The nights were still warm for autumn, but the leaves would brown and fall soon enough.
*
"If you're here about the speech," Reishin said when Kurou's frame darkened his doorway the following morning, "I'm not interested."
His brother stepped inside and closed the door. Reishin arranged the skirt of his robe to cover his legs, pulled his bedsheets over, a porcelain cup in one hand. Thin gold lines were painted along the lip, shaped like petals, and it gleamed in the lamplight. His curtains were still drawn, and he'd forbidden the women from opening them when they came in carrying the robes he requested. Those were draped on their stand in the far corner beside the door to the bath, shades of blue layered over yellow, and not a smudge of red in sight. Kurou ruined his attempt to purge the room with his usual dull maroon robe and the red of the cap covering his hair.
Why was it, Reishin had often wondered at court, that members of the clans insisted on flaunting their chains in the color of their robes, or their hats, or any number of tasteless accessories - handkerchiefs, pointed shoes, fans? Why restrict one's wardrobe? Red didn't compliment his brother's pallor, and it only highlighted Shuurei's resemblance to her mother when he saw her wearing it; pink suited her better, though only barely. Green or deep purple would be more fitting.
"I heard your name uttered in conjunction with the words 'graceless' and 'narcissistic,' quite a few times, but the effect was otherwise unremarkable," Kurou said, gathering his sleeve with one hand and holding a folded piece of paper between the fingers of the other. "They expect you to be rude."
Reishin sipped his tea. The sweet flavor soured on his tongue. "My agents will have noted their names and rankings."
His brother snorted, and brought the note, tossing it onto the covers when Reishin made no motion to take it. "If you're going to stay, you should try to be more personable."
He looked into the yellow of his tea, lifted his brow. "I'm perfectly pleasant."
Kurou looked at the green glow of the curtains. "Yuri said you would take her role as Sera's teacher. Is that true?"
"I never said anything about that."
His brother's eyes slid to watch him, though his face was still turned away. "Treat her kindly."
Reishin frowned. "I told you--"
"She also mentioned a midwinter trip to the house to check on you."
His lips pressed together. Three months. He would be an old man by then. "I don't need to be checked up on."
Kurou sighed, and his eyes flicked away. It always sounded the same - a deep breath, the sort that reached to the diaphragm, a gravely undertone of the voice, and he let it go like a weight had been dropped on his chest, like a horse fell on him and forced the air out. "I told her not to worry, but she'll come anyway." He turned his back on Reishin and walked toward the door. "I doubt Shouka will bother with clan business. It'll be the same as always."
Another frown creased his face, and his eyes narrowed, but his brother left, closed the door, and it was too early yet to hear anything but the chirping of a few birds and his receding footsteps. The tea smelled green like grass, and he lifted it to his lips again to see if it would taste better now Kurou was gone. Reishin unfolded the paper with his other hand.
Shou and Shun are loyal. The incense has been traced to the Yellows, a store on the border with Shun prefecture.
Well enough. The only others Reishin knew of to make use of medicinal incense on a regular basis were the nobles of Sa Province, and the business there had taken a sharp downturn since his niece held the governorship.
A list of names followed, and a list of insults. A timetable was given for his request of tropical wood; the river flowing south, out of Saiunkoku, was running low and grounding trade vessels.
There is Hyou activity near the capitol. Three mysterious deaths.
Reishin leaned down to place his cup on the floor by his bed and took the note to his writing desk. His hair slid over his shoulders to curl on the table when he bent over to open his writing box, wet his brush, and compose his reply. Hyou activity at the capitol meant a threat to his niece, his brother - possibly to himself, but certainly anybody close to their target was fair game.
That would have to be taken care of. Immediately.
.
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