But the abbot was no soldier. He’d renounced the sword, and in so doing he’d put himself on the opposite side of a line Daigoro was loath to cross. Peace, at the cost of moral compromise. Principle, at the cost of endangering his family.
Daigoro knew what he had to do. He just didn’t know what to do with the fear. Too often doing the right thing had made him suffer. This time it made him tremble.
11
Shichio’s favorite room in the Jurakudai was the highest deck of the moon tower. Hashiba liked it too, but for very different reasons. Hashiba enjoyed the view of the city; the lofty perspective made him feel more powerful, and the quiet made him feel more at peace. Shichio liked the moon tower for its austerity. It was one of the only places in the entire palace that hadn’t yet been gilded and painted and overdone. Hashiba was oddly embarrassed by that fact; he seemed to equate ostentation with wealth, and, by extension, tastefulness with poverty. That meant the upper deck of the moon tower was an intimate place for him, a good place for dalliances and for private meetings with his closest advisers.
Shichio was content to serve in both capacities. At the moment that meant wiping Hashiba clean after they’d finished. The demon mask seemed suddenly heavier—or rather, Shichio suddenly felt its weight on his neck muscles, now that he wasn’t otherwise distracted—and so he shifted it to sit atop his head. Moonlight streamed in through the open walls, and a cool breeze raised goose bumps all up and down Shichio’s naked, sweat-slicked body. Hashiba never seemed to feel the cold. He was tougher than Shichio, in that way and many others.
“Look at you,” Hashiba said, chuckling. He bunched Shichio’s silken kimono in his fist and threw it at him. “Why do you carry on this way? I’ve concubines enough. Why not invite a few of them up here to warm you?”
Shichio understood the subtext well enough. Hashiba didn’t understand that sex might be like the moon tower for them: enjoyable for two very different reasons. For him, real men did the penetrating, not the receiving, and so he found their liaisons shameful—not for himself, but for Shichio. That was why he wanted a consort to join them: so that Shichio could be the conqueror for once. But there were two ways of conquering too. That was something else Hashiba didn’t understand.
“Tell me,” Shichio said, “has there been any word from that Okuma boy?”
Hashiba laughed. “Him again? We can bring some of our own boys up here some night if you like.”
Shichio’s hand slipped down to the inside of Hashiba’s upper thigh. “Come on. Tell me.”
Hashiba sighed. “He married. I can only assume it was to forge an alliance with that Inoue clan. That’s good. I can use one to apply leverage against the other.”
“I don’t care who some bumpkin boy shares his bed with. I want to know about my present.”
“Ah. That.” Hashiba folded a pillow under his head and settled back in. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any monk’s heads for you. Don’t we have enough monks around here? Go march on Mount Hiei. Collecting a few heads up there will help keep the rest of the monasteries in line.”
Shichio made a pouting face. “I don’t want a head, I want his head.”
“Well, you can’t have it.”
Shichio slipped the mask off his head. “You’re certain of that?”
“What is it with that mask of yours?” Hashiba pushed Shichio’s hand away, got to his feet, and strode forward to look down at his capital city. His shadow bisected a broad rectangle of moonlight on the floor. “You’re too fond of that thing,” he said. “You pet it like a house cat.”
Shichio was surprised to discover it was true. His thumb was running over the tips of the mask’s teeth, over and over, wholly independently of his will. It was an unconscious habit, but now that Hashiba had drawn his attention to it, Shichio recognized that caressing the mask and speaking of violence were two faces of one coin. Visions of swords, of stabbing and being stabbed, of penetrating and being penetrated. The mask inspired these things in him. That was why he wore it during their liaisons, and why all this talk of beheading had aroused similar feelings. Shichio felt himself begin to stiffen.
“It’s the craftsmanship,” he said, still stroking the mask. “Come back here. Look at how expressive it is. In gold, this kind of detail is pedestrian, but in iron? Never. It’s as rare as anything. It’s the most rugged sort of beauty, don’t you think?”
Just like you, Shichio thought to himself, but Hashiba’s musings went in a different direction. “I think I should have buried it right beside the assassin you took it from.”
Shichio remembered that night all too well. It was the first time he’d killed a man. It was the night he made himself valuable to Hashiba, the night his fortunes started changing for the better. Rightly or wrongly, Shichio attributed his success to the mask. He often wondered what would be different if he’d purchased it instead of killed for it. Might its touch bring thoughts of money to his mind instead? Perhaps the obsession with swords was innate to its iron, or perhaps the mask just gave focus to Shichio’s hatred of the samurai caste. It was impossible to know for certain.
“You should throw away that demon of yours,” Hashiba said. “And throw away thoughts of this northern monk as well. He’s no threat to anyone.”
“So you have heard from the Okuma boy. And not just a wedding announcement.”
Hashiba sighed, dropped back among the silken pillows, and surrendered. “Yes.”
Shichio only had to think about it for a second. “You received a letter, didn’t you? You brought it here? Tonight?”
Hashiba’s only answer was to glance in the direction of the door. Shichio walked saucily to the entryway and found a large, carefully folded page among Hashiba’s other things. Smiling, Shichio sauntered back, sitting next to Hashiba again and opening the letter.
As he began to read, Hashiba took hold of Shichio’s hand and guided it back down to his crotch. Shichio skipped over the standard salutations and looked for mention of the monk. “I respectfully recommend against beheading our abbot of Katto-ji,” he read. “He is an old man who does harm to no one, but more than this, he has taken the tonsure. I fear I may bring bad karma upon you by fulfilling your order to execute one such as him, and it is every samurai’s sworn duty not to harm his lord.”
Shichio felt his heart race, but he kept reading. “Given the choice between obeying and harming the emperor’s chosen regent on the one hand and disobeying to protect his interests on the other, I must choose disobedience. Can you believe the impudence of this boy?”
Hashiba laughed. “I thought him rather clever.”
“He disobeys a direct order from his regent!”
“He’s the only samurai in the land who vows to protect me even in my future lives. Think of it! A bodyguard for my next reincarnation. Shichio, can you not just laugh this off and let it pass?”
“I tell you, that monk is a threat to you and your house. Kill him.”
“The boy has done as much already. Read the next paragraph.”
Shichio glanced down at the Okuma brat’s scribblings. What he read there made him angry enough to stand up and start pacing. “A garrison? That’s all? Just a garrison outside the monastery?”
“It is more than enough. That old man won’t leave until he floats out on the smoke rising from his pyre.”
Shichio crumpled the letter and flung it at the floor. “He can still talk. He can still teach. He wouldn’t be the first monk to turn his order against you.”