The Initiate Brother Duology (137 page)

“Shuyun-sum,” Sotura said, his voice rising. “Think what you do….”

Sotura watched as Shuyun dropped the pendant and chain into the palm of one hand. The young monk stared at the gold and jade in his hand with a look of deep sadness.

“You will be cursed by the Perfect Master,” the Supreme Master intoned.

Shuyun looked up at these last words. With a look of great regret he set the pendant on the floor and the chain slid out of his hand to make a pile beside it.

“I will be blessed by Botahara,” Shuyun said, and Sutso felt the conviction of these words, saw even the Supreme Master hesitate when he heard them.

Shuyun rose slowly to his feet so that he stood above all the senior members of his Order. Sotura watched as he did the unthinkable: Shuyun
pointed
at the Supreme Master.

“Pray that the compassion of Botahara encompasses you, Brother, for if it does you may yet be returned to the wheel.”

Brother Sotura was on his feet, lightning quick. Three blindingly fast strides toward the young monk and then suddenly he stepped back off balance
for an instant as though he had been struck. Shuyun stood with his hand raised, palm out, yet he had not touched the senior Brother.

“Forgive me Sotura-sum,” Shuyun said quietly, his voice full of compassion. “Separate yourself from those who have lost the Way. Do you remember the lesson you taught when I was but a child? The butterfly enclosed in your chi strong fist?” Shuyun reached into his sleeve and removed something. When he opened his hand a white blossom lay upon his palm. “Brother Sotura, your Order has lost compassion—the beginnings of wisdom. To find the True Path you must leave them.”

The Senior Brother stood looking at the blossom in Shuyun’s hand. “You did not touch me…” he said.

Shuyun nodded once.

Brother Sotura looked up from the blossom into the eyes of his former student. The chi quan master’s face was deeply troubled.

Sister Sutso heard a noise to her right and then a thin hand gripped her shoulder. The Prioress stepped out of her chair and came to her knees beside Sutso. The secretary turned and saw the Prioress was crying. The old woman bowed her head to the floor and began to chant the prayer of thanksgiving.

Shuyun turned at the sound of this and Sutso thought she saw a look of horror cross the Botahist mask. The young monk turned back to his former teacher, holding his gaze for a second, and then almost fled from the hall.

Sutso looked down at her superior who still bowed her head to the floor, and then she realized that others did the same—both Sisters and Brothers.

Botahara help me,
she thought,
have I been in the presence of the Teacher and not known?

T
HE EMPRESS OF Wa stood alone on a balcony looking north across the small part of her vast Empire that could be seen from the Island Palace. The morning’s rain had let up, leaving the air clear and the sky hung with retreating clouds that twisted slowly in a clearing breeze. The shadows cast by the clouds flowed slowly across the fields and flanks of distant mountains creating an ever changing pattern no artist could hope to capture.

The barbarian encampment spread in mottled grays and browns across the green grass and came by turns into shadow and light. Outside the protective circle maintained by the Shonto soldiers, people from the capital and surrounding areas had begun to gather. Nishima could see knots of them collecting here and there, staring with fascination toward the encampment. Many brought food, Nishima had been told, and she was surprised to hear this for there was still little enough to be had in the Imperial Capital.

This sudden generosity did not necessarily indicate a great change in the attitude of the people of Wa toward their invaders: the rumor was spreading that the Shonto Spiritual Advisor, the gifted monk who had defeated the barbarian army, was the Teacher so long awaited. Only the Shonto soldiers and the fear of plague kept the people away from the man they hoped was the one foretold.

Nishima felt a deep uneasiness when she looked down at the gathering crowds as though they were another force intended to keep her and Shuyun apart.

For three days now the monk had been away tending to the barbarians
and Nishima had grown more and more restive as though each day took him farther away and made his return less likely. She paced across the short balcony to its end, stopped, and looked out again. Forcing herself to give up the futile searching of tiny figures moving through the barbarian encampment, Nishima fixed her gaze on the northeast.

Kamu had said that the barbarian army that traveled there would begin to raise a dust cloud once the wind dried the land, but there was no sign of this yet nor of Lord Taiki’s pursuing force. This part of the shattered barbarian army had razed a village the previous day though the villagers had fled before the tribesmen descended. Nishima pressed her fingers to her temple. No one was really certain of the purpose of these barbarians, loose upon the land as they were. The suggestion that they made their way toward the Botahist temples on the Mountain of the Pure Spirit still appeared the most likely explanation. Obviously these barbarians could not know that the Brothers would never succumb to force, nor would they be likely to simply offer a cure.

Shuyun had said that the plague would take hold among the fleeing barbarians by the third day so that only a few would remain strong when they arrived at their probable destination. Lord Taiki, she hoped, would convince these to surrender.

Her attention was taken by a line of men on foot who passed the Shonto soldiers who guarded the barbarian. Botahist Brothers, Nishima realized. A growing number were leaving their Order to come serve the one said to be the Teacher—to practice compassion rather than politics.

The Botahist Brotherhood, her advisors surmised, were locked in internal struggle. They had stripped Shuyun of his pendant and turned their backs on him, and only after this rash decision had they realized their error. They had alienated the new sovereign, surrendering the advantage of Imperial favor to the Sisterhood—and they might have forced the Teacher from their Order.

Nishima shook her head. As her father often noted, Brother Satake would never have acted so foolishly had he become the leader of the Botahist Brotherhood. It made her wonder if it was not as Shimeko said—the Brotherhood had become decadent.

A full report of the meeting between Shuyun and the seniors of the Botahist Orders had been supplied by Kamu. He spoke of Shuyun’s actions and speech with pride. The Brothers made few miscalculations as great as that.
It must have been impossible for them to imagine that a young Initiate could act independently, ignoring their gravest threats, offering one of the Order’s greatest secrets to their rivals. Only a few months away from Jinjoh Monastery and Initiate Brother Shuyun had rebelled against them—far more openly than Satake-sum ever had. In part, Nishima viewed this as almost a personal triumph, but it also filled her with fear. Brother Shuyun appeared to be under no one’s spell.

Shokan was utterly convinced that the Brotherhood would recant their refusal to assist the barbarians and would scramble to preserve some shred of the advantage they had surrendered when the Sisters offered their services to Shuyun and the Throne. It was perhaps a sign of how fractured their Order had become that this had not yet occurred.

A knock on the screen that led from the balcony startled Nishima, and a Shonto guard appeared at her response. “The audience, Empress,” he said, keeping his eyes cast down.

Nishima took a last look out to where Shuyun ministered to the army of the desert and then left the room she had begun to use so that she might look out over the barbarian encampment. Her guard fell into step around her immediately.

She had managed to break the tradition of the sedan chair, though this shocked more than just a few officials. To ameliorate this somewhat, she agreed to use the chair for ceremonies—the struggle now was focused on semantics—which events could be considered ceremonial? There was, Nishima was sure, a definite move afoot to broaden the strict definition of the word.

As Shokan had suggested, Nishima tried to view the situation with humor, but it was difficult. The officials of the Island Palace were completely obsessed with tradition and ceremony and matters too trivial to believe. It was obvious that the running of the Empire had not been their concern for a very long time—not since the days of the later Hanama Emperors. This would have to change, if it meant replacing every senior member of the government.

She descended a massive set of stairs, courtiers and officials bowing as she passed. A private audience hall off Nishima’s official rooms was their destination. Until Nishima had peopled the Great Council to her liking, there were still a number of things that needed to be done beyond the view of the officials. Their interference in certain things would not be helpful. Nishima was
beginning to realize that she had learned more than she ever realized about leading men from years of watching her father. There was no one more skilled than Lord Shonto at winning loyalty and achieving ends through the efforts of others. It was the intention of the new Empress to bend Imperial protocol as much as possible so that she could run her administration upon the Shonto model—something she knew was effective.

Returning the Empire to a state of stability was her immediate task and to do this she would need the assistance of many. Shokan and Kamu had pointed out that rewarding those who had followed her father from Seh, and supported him when it meant defying the Emperor, was the beginning. Let it be said that the new Empress understood and rewarded loyalty. It was the Shonto way.

She had been informed that there were rebellions in Chou, and a Yamaku cousin there had declared himself Emperor and began to gather an army—a fool’s rebellion, Hojo assured her, but it indicated that speed was necessary to establish the validity of her rule beyond contesting. The previous day a report had come that the Yamaku Imperial family dwelt no more on this plane, caught by the people who fled the barbarian invasion. It was a sad thing and, though Hojo had breathed a sigh of relief, Shokan had told Nishima privately that this was not as significant as others hoped. Pretenders could easily arise claiming to be Yamaku sons or daughters or cousins—even distant relatives of the Hanama might make claims, for that was the basis of Nishima’s own. Imperial blood was not terribly rare among the peers of Wa.

They reached the rooms that Nishima had made her own and the Empress nodded to bowing Shonto guards as she passed. The audience hall was empty and Nishima took her place on the low dais, arranging her robes with care—white over crimson. She was glad that she had not met resistance from Shokan or the others to this. It was customary for those who performed great deeds for the sake of the Empire to receive their rewards in great ceremony, but Nishima did not feel such a ceremony was appropriate at this time. Perhaps when the Empire was more settled. The people she would speak with this day were not courtiers or officials of the palace. They would not demand that the smallest of their actions receive public recognition. As callous as it sounded, some part of Nishima knew that to strengthen the ties to those who had supported her father she needed to treat each as a private favorite of the Empress. This knowledge embarrassed her somewhat, but it did not stop her from acting accordingly.

I have a rule to consolidate and legitimize, Nishima told herself, but may I not walk too far down the path of the cold manipulator. Botahara save me from that.

Kamu entered and knelt before the dais, bowing his head to the mat. The Empress nodded to her Major Chancellor. The officials of the palace were no doubt still stinging from Kamu’s appointment but, along with the other stands she had made, this was having its desired effect—the officials were realizing that they would not rule the Empress.

“Kamu-sum. It is my hope that the constant whispers of the palace officials do not make the performance of your duties too difficult.”

“The buzzing of flies, Empress. I have long since learned to ignore such things.”

“Perhaps it is another of your many skills that I may one day acquire myself, for I confess this buzzing sometimes drives me to the ends of my patience.”

The old man smiled, the great wrinkled raincloud of his face creasing in a thousand small lines. “Patience was not something I learned in my youth, Empress, it grew slowly as the years passed. Thus it was that, in my younger years, I fought more duels than perhaps even Lord Komawara.” Kamu gestured to his empty sleeve. “Here is my great teacher of patience, Empress, otherwise I may have been too foolish by nature to have ever acquired this most valuable of traits. But you are wiser than I, my lady,” he hurried to add, embarrassed suddenly by what he implied.

Nishima hid a small shudder. “Let us hope that I may learn from you, Kamu-sum. I would certainly live with my loss less skillfully and with less grace than my chancellor.”

Kamu looked down, perhaps embarrassed. He consulted a scroll.