Year of the Demon

price.”

Katsushima’s face darkened. “She is a liability.”

“She is my mother. What would you have me do? Marry her off instead?”

“No.” Katsushima said it a bit too quickly. “As dangerous as it is to keep her around, it is more dangerous to let her go.”

“Well, what, then?”

Katsushima said nothing to that, but Daigoro was afraid he could guess the answer. Katsushima had no family. He was as free as a wave on the sea. But he was right. Daigoro’s mother might be at peace for the rest of the evening, but he knew how vulnerable she was. She made the whole clan vulnerable. She’d already spoiled things with the Soras, and because of her condition she’d forced Daigoro to bind himself to the daughter of a petty, overbearing, power-seeking spymaster. The Okumas were weaker so long as Daigoro’s mother was among them.

Just like that, the music sounded flat to his ears and the sake soured in his mouth. Someone like Katsushima might have married her off just to make her another clan’s problem, then cut all ties so she couldn’t be used against him. That certainly would have been an easier solution. But even Katsushima could see it wasn’t so easy to cut emotional ties. And if she couldn’t be kept around and she couldn’t be let go, there was only one other solution.

It would have been so easy. Daigoro had a hundred different sword hands he could assign to the task. In truth it was the only sensible alternative he had. And Daigoro would never forgive himself for thinking of it.

9

After the most dizzying month of his life, Daigoro found himself on a balmy evening sitting next to his new wife. Cicadas chirped merrily outside the compound walls and the sunset painted the western sky with a thousand shades of orange. Akiko sat beside him on the lip of the veranda, her perfume as sweet as apple blossoms. He still felt as if he barely knew her—their wedding was the first time they’d spent more than an hour in each other’s company, and that had been only a week ago—but so far he had the impression that they’d get along well. She made him laugh, and that simple fact made him realize he hadn’t had much occasion for laughter in over a year. It was good to have laughter back in his life.

Better still, seeing his leg hadn’t upset her in the slightest. It looked more like a skinned snake than anything else, and prior to last week the very thought of marriage had inspired dreadful thoughts of trying to hide his leg from his wife for the rest of their lives together. He couldn’t bear seeing a woman’s revulsion at the sight of it, but how could he conceal his leg from someone who would see him daily in his smallclothes? Perhaps Akiko had been forewarned about it. Or perhaps it had taken her by surprise when she first undressed him and she sincerely wasn’t put off. Daigoro didn’t care which one it was. He felt only an overflowing swell of gratitude that she hadn’t reacted sourly.

And the discovery of sex made his life immeasurably better. He’d understood the mechanics of it well enough, and for his fourteenth birthday Ichiro had even taken him to visit a brothel. But at that age he’d been even more embarrassed of his leg than he was now, and so the prostitute had only stripped herself naked and slipped her hand down the front of his hakama. Daigoro’s wedding night came as a nigh- religious revelation. Akiko was equally eager, and despite a touch of neophyte clumsiness in some of their experimentations, so far they hadn’t experimented fewer than six times a day.

Yet there remained the incessant affairs of state—this clan bickering with that one, Lord This and Lord That feuding over some perceived slight—and the affairs of House Okuma too. First and foremost was the wedding, the planning of which had consumed every spare moment beforehand and the paying for which promised to occupy him for some weeks to come. Between all of that and the constant temptation to chase Akiko back to the bedroom, Daigoro hardly had time to eat. He hadn’t so much as unsheathed Glorious Victory, to say nothing of training, though for that his battered right hand was supremely grateful.

Akiko ran a fingertip across his shoulder blades and handed him the next envelope. She had what seemed like an unending supply of them, some delivered personally at their wedding, others trickling in as the riders came and went with each passing day. Daigoro opened the newest envelope—it was cleverly folded to blossom like a flower—and discovered it was from Lord Yasuda, Daigoro’s favorite among all the Okuma allies. Daigoro thought of him more as an uncle than a military asset. Sadly, he was an aging uncle, and his many years were finally catching up with him. He’d taken sick, and so he hadn’t been able to attend the wedding even though the Yasuda compound was less than half a day’s ride away. Nevertheless, Lord Yasuda’s gift was most generous: nine beautiful horses, three stallions and six mares, along with wishes for many foals and many children. The aging lord himself had a new great-grandson, and expressed his wishes that Daigoro and Akiko quickly make for him a playmate close to his own age.

“Oh!” Akiko chirped. “Look, a delivery from the regent himself.”

“How about that?” Daigoro said. “I wouldn’t have thought news of our little wedding would have made it so high in the sky.”

“And to think the sun and the moon didn’t think to give us anything. How scandalous!”

She broke the wax kiri blossom seal, and watched eagerly as Daigoro took it from her and read. “Oh, hell,” he said.

“Is that what the regent thinks of marriage? It hasn’t been bad so far.”

Daigoro chuckled, but only halfheartedly. “Tomo,” he said, not needing to raise his voice; unless the boy was off on some errand, he was always within earshot. “Find Katsushima-san for me, would you?”

“Is it trouble?” asked Akiko.

“The worst kind. An execution order.”

Akiko gasped. “The imperial regent wants you to commit seppuku?”

Daigoro shook his head, giving the letter a puzzled look. “No. He orders me to kill the abbot of Katto- ji.”

“What? Why?”

“It doesn’t say. It says only to send his head back to Kyoto.”

It was his wife’s turn to frown. She read the regent’s missive for herself, and by the end Daigoro saw her forehead furrow with the same consternation he’d felt as he was reading. “Who is this monk?” she asked.

“You met him briefly.”

“What, the old man who blessed our wedding?”

That and more, Daigoro thought. He admired the abbot. He knew the old monk had once been samurai, and that meant he might well have made some enemies on the battlefield. It was even possible that he had faced General Toyotomi. Could he have been involved in one of Toyotomi’s defeats?

Daigoro dismissed the thought. Even if it were true, all past offenses were absolved as soon as one took the cloth. Why should anyone call for his head now? And why would someone of such a lofty position even deign to remember that the abbot existed?

“Daigoro, this is dated two weeks ago.”

“I know.”

“He could have you killed just for failing to respond.” She shook the letter at him like a stick. “This is Toyotomi Hideyoshi we’re talking about. Patience and fair-mindedness aren’t what he’s known for.”

“I know, Aki. Just listen—”

“How did this happen? Does he send you so many letters from him that you can just forget one?”

Daigoro wasn’t accustomed to being reprimanded by a woman his own age. He wondered if this was what married life had in store for him, though he had to admit there was love in her agitation. After only seven days together, she cared enough for him to get upset when she saw him threatened.

Even so, he was glad to see Katsushima walk up behind her and snatch the letter from her fingers. He’d taken her entirely by surprise—his footfalls were as muted as his personality—and that made her catch her breath long enough for Daigoro to get a word in.